Re: Collection of questions

Matthew Wilson wrote:
> Urs Holzer wrote:
>> Hi together
>>
>> I think we should make a collection of all questions we have to 
>> answer. (Stephen Crawley has posted many questions on this list 
>> already.) I am not shure how we should do that. Using the mailing 
>> list only is perhaps not feasible.
>> The fanciest way would be to create a webpage with all the questions, 
>> the answers can then be submitted using annotations.
>> Any other ideas?
>
> Is there still a W3C group on annotations who can answer the 
> questions, or update the specification or the server?
>
> Matthew
>
I think the answer is "no" to all of Matthew's questions ... 
unfortunately.  The original Annotea group has wound up.  Ralph Swick is 
still with W3C, but no longer interested in in Annotea. I had a short 
conversation with Ivan Herman a few weeks back (face to face!) and the 
impression I got was that he thinks that Annotea is out-dated.  Anyway, 
he said that there was little chance that the W3C Semantic Web group 
would reactivate this area.  Another possiblity is /Marja-Riitta 
Koivunen/ and her "annotea.org" website.  However, the indications are 
that she is semi-retired at the moment: there have been no updates to 
the site since 2006 and she didn't respond to my email.

So I think the most practical solution would be to set up an informal 
working group (independent of W3C) to come up with consensus answers and 
document them.  A Wiki-based group sounds a reasonable approach.  (We 
might be able to host an Annotea Wiki on "http://metadata.net" ... I 
need to check out some issues.)

It remains to be seen if there are enough interested people with the 
skills and dedication to come up with a decent Annotea specification.  
In my experience (MOF, XMI), writing a decent specification / standard 
is hard work, and requires real dedication, discipline and willingness 
to compromise.  So lets not get too ambitious just yet.

-- Steve

Received on Thursday, 2 July 2009 23:23:48 UTC