[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #40031: Consider Add Web Annotations to WordPress

[WordPress Trac]

#40031: Consider Add Web Annotations to WordPress
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 Reporter:  MikeSchinkel     |      Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Comments         |    Version:  trunk
 Severity:  normal           |   Keywords:
  Focuses:  ui               |
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 This is a strawman ticket published to generate discussion and hopefully
 concensus.

 The W3C has standardized [https://wptavern.com/web-annotations-are-now-a
 -w3c-standard-paving-the-way-for-decentralized-annotation-infrastructure
 Web Annotions] to decentralize annotations  across the web
 ''("annotations" being a superset of commenting.)''

 As WordPress' mission is to ''"Democratize Publishing,"'' and as WordPress
 is by far the most widely used tool for publishing content on the web that
 also allows other people to comment on said content, it would seem fitting
 ''(at least to me)'' that WordPress would empower users of WordPress to
 control their own annotations across the web, moving forward.

 How might to work?  WordPress could offer three (3) new and yet related
 features:

 1. Add enhancements to the commenting system to accept references to
 annotations.

 2. Enable a WordPress site to be an ''"Annotation Server."'' This would
 likely leverage the existing comment system where the comments could be
 associated with a new custom post type where each inidividual post could
 collection annotations for and represent one "persona" of a given
 registered user as well as how that persona could be presented to the
 outside world in the form of a URL that represents the user.

 3. An ''"Annotate This"'' feature similar to ''"Press This"'' which can
 store annotations at the user's own WordPress site where the Annotate This
 UI could become the UI for commenting on all future WordPress websites
 (and potential non-WordPress sites) that offer feature 1.  For those that
 doesn't offer feature 1 this UI could provide functionality to more easily
 transfer the comment to the foreign commenting system ''(such as copying
 it to the clipboard on user request)'' and possibly even implement
 commenting for specific well-known services ''(Twitter, Facebook,
 LinkedIn, Disqus, Medium, etc.)''

 Note that some people's first reaction to this idea might be ''"that's
 plugin territory"'' -- which I can appreciate -- but there are four (4)
 reasons why I think this is core territory instead:

 1. It is reasonable to assume that 80% of WordPress users would want to
 maintain their own comments in addition to their own posts,

 2. This idea only really has benefits if it can become ubiquitous, e.g. If
 the 3 features are all available. If a plugin then an individual can only
 ever control one side of annotations thus dooming their implementation to
 obscurity.  Note that a ''"Feature Plugin"'' slated for a future version
 of WP core is not ''"plugin territory"'' that I am arguing against.

 3. It is a W3C recommendation, not some startup 3rd party service so it is
 likely to be adopted by many if not all of the web in the next few years.
 Why should WordPress not be the tool that helps define for the world how
 annotations should best be utilized, before some walled-garden like
 Facebook establishes the defacto-approach ahead of WordPress?

 4. And finally, WordPress's mission is to ''"Democratize Publishing"'' and
 I cannot think of many other feature requests that are more ''"on-
 mission"'' than this one,


 Thoughts?

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40031>
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