1. Annotation
& Community
On creating collaborative commentary constructs…collectively

2. Hi
• aka BigBlueHat
• Work for John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Co-Editor of the W3C Web Annotation Data Model & Vocabulary
• Co-Chair of the upcoming W3C JSON-LD Working Group
• Contributor to the W3C Web Publishing Working Group
• Core Committer at Apache Annotator

3. Surveying the Stuff

4. Standards
• Open Annotation Community Group
 Open Annotation Data Model
• Web Annotation Working Group
 Web Annotation Data Model
 Web Annotation Vocabulary
 Web Annotation Protocol
 Selectors and States Note
 Web Annotations in HTML Note
• Digital Publishing Interest Group
 Digital Publishing Use Cases and Requirements
• Web Publishing Working Group
 Web Annotation Extensions for Web Publication
 Web Publication
 (eventually) EPUB 4
 (possibly) Packaged Web Publications

5. Standards
• IIIF
 Uses Open Annotation for image…annotation
• EPUB 3
 Open Annotation for EPUB
• Microsoft’s proposal for “annotations for ARIA”
 Maps Web Annotation to ARIA attributes
continued

6. Source
• Annotator.js
• Hypothes.is
• Randall Leed’s Libraries (official name)
 dom-anchor-*
• Web Annotation WG Selectors and States code
• Apache Annotator
 (in-progress) DOM-focused selector juggler
 (eventual) home of Randall Leed’s Libraries
 (future) Web Annotation Protocol Server
 (future) Web Annotation Validators

7. Software
& Services
• Hypothes.is
 Public service
 Partner installs
• Wiley Information Model
 Open Annotation for editorial workflows
• WorldBrain.io
• WebMemex.org
• dokie.li
• Tell me about yours!

8. Still Stuck
sadly

9. Struggles
• The Frightful Five
 Few, increasingly powerful orgs have final say
• Productized Self
 Who owns you / your content?
• Fake news
• Trolling
• Lack of diversity
 In process
 In voice
 In visibility
 In conversation

10. Structural
Solutions
• Conway’s Law
 “organizations which design systems … are
constrained to produce designs which are copies of
the communication structures of these
organizations.”
• Centralization
• Decentralization
• Federation
• Shared Standards
• Shared Source
• Shared Stability

11. Sample
Structures
• Web Annotation Working Group
 “closed”—which means we did it!
• Open Annotation Community Group
 Open to anyone interested in annotation
 And future work on any related Web specs
• Web Publishing Working Group
 “active”—join today! See me in the hallway.
 Open to any W3C Member organization
• Apache Annotator
 Open to anyone interested in contributing to code
or content about Web Annotations
 Current focus is DOM selection integration
• The Hypothesis Project
 Talk to Jon, Heather, Dan, etc.
available now!

12. Standards
& Source
Solutions
• Hypothes.is
• Apache Annotator
• Verifiable Credentials Working Group
• Credentials Community Group
 Decentralized Identifier Documents
 Self-sovereign Identities
• ActivityStreams
• ActivityPub
 Mastadon
 PeerTube

13. Summary
• What about your own organization?
• What structure best matches your desired
software structure?
• Plan for failure
• Fail with purpose
• Find friends
• Contribute to the Creation of Collective
Commentary Constructs!!

14. Thanks!