Web Annotation Data Model [First Public Working Draft]
Web Annotation Principles
The Web Annotation Data Model is defined using the following basic principles:
- An Annotation is a resource that represents the link between resources, or a selection within a resource.
- There are two types of participating resources, Bodies and Targets.
- Annotations have 0..n Bodies.
- Annotations have 1..n Targets.
- The content of the Body resources is related to, and typically “about”, the content of the Target resources.
- Annotations, Bodies and Targets may have their own properties and relationships, typically including provenance information and descriptive metadata.
- The intent behind the creation of an Annotation is an important property, and is identified by a Motivation resource.
The following principles describe additional distinctions needed regarding the exact nature of Target and Body:
- The Target or Body resource may be more specific than the entity identified by the resource’s URI alone.
- In particular,
- The Target or Body resource may be a specific segment of a resource.
- The Target or Body resource may be a resource with a specific style.
- The Target or Body resource may be a resource in a specific context or container.
- The Target or Body resource may be any combination of the above.
- The identity of the specific resource is separate from the description of how to obtain the specific resource.
- The specific resource is derived from a resource identified by a URI.
The following principles describe additional semantics regarding multiple resources:
- A resource may be a choice between multiple resources.
- A resource may be a unique, unordered set of resources.
- A resource may be an ordered list of resources.
- These resources may be used anywhere a resource may be used.
Take the time to read and comment!
If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to public-annotation@w3.org (subscribe, archives), or use the specification annotation tool by selecting some text and activating the sidebar. (emphasis added)
That’s right! You can annotate the annotation draft itself. Unfortunate that more standards organizations don’t offer that type of commenting facility by default.
Although transclusion would be a better solution, annotations may offer a way to finally break through the document wall that conceals information. For example, making a reference to the Senate Report on CIA torture, page 33, means that I have to look up that document, locate page 33 and then pair your comment to that page. (Easier than manual retrieval but still less than optimal.)
Say you wanted to comment on:
After the July 2002 meetings, the CIA’s (deleted) CTC Legal, (deleted) , drafted a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft asking the Department of Justice for “a formal declination of prosecution, in advance, for any employees of the United States, as well as any other personnel acting on behalf of the United States, who may employ methods in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that otherwise might subject those individuals to prosecution.”*
To supply the information that has been deleted in that sentence and then to share that annotation with others, such that when they view that document, the information appears as annotations on the deleted portions of text.
Or to annotate various lies being told by former Vice President Cheney and others with pointers to the Senate CIA torture report.
The power of annotation breaks barrier that documents pose to the composition of a sub-document portion of information with other information.
If you thought we needed librarians when organizing information at the document level, just imagine how badly we will need them when organization of information is at the sub-document level.
* So much for torture being the solution when a bomb is ticking in a school. Anyone would use whatever means necessary to stop such a bomb and accept the consequences of their actions. Requests for legal immunity demonstrates those involved in U.S. sponsored torture were not only ineffectual but cowards as well.