tony said:
>   Greg, Jim and Andrew all seem to agree that such notes
>   should not be included in PG.  This is too bad since
>   I would like to see such annotating.

i would think it would be too difficult to decide _who_
would get to provide the notes for a particular e-text...

it's easy enough for people to put their annotations
on their website for download by anyone who wants.
i think that's the reasonable course of action to take.

***

jon said:
>   But will it work for *him*?

i dunno.  thad will have to tell me.         :+)


>   Will it meet the requirements he sees
>   that such a system must fulfill?

i'd think so, since i've done a lot of thinking
and searching and researching on what the
realm of requirements are.  but who knows?
maybe thad has an idea for a better mousetrap.

tell me, what do _you_ think "the requirements" are?


>   That's the purpose of this discussion
>   -- to assess the requirements for any system
>   enabling external annotations of digital publications.

not really.  i got the impression that
thad just wants something that works;
he wasn't trying to start a philosophical
discussion about the realm of annotation.
he just wants to juxtapose his commentary
next to the text to which it refers, i'd think.
(thad, don't let this melee scare you off, man;
step right in and tell us what you really think!)       ;+)


>   This list of requirements is independent of
>   solution type, but will certainly be useful in
>   evaluating how one would implement the application
>   (whether plain text or XML-based.)

again, i don't think this is all that complicated.

if you've examined all the types of annotation
needed, and seen how various e-book programs
have implemented solutions, it is straightforward.


>   Btw, since DP is providing the lion's share of
>   the PG texts, to master them in XML (TEI and XHTML),
>   and plans to redo many of the early PG texts,
>   the issue that PG's corpus is now mostly plain text
>   becomes less compelling.

yeah, well, you'll let me know when that markup is complete,
won't you please?  because i'm not holding my breath on it...

-bowerbird

p.s.  i'm still doing some exploring about "sophie",
but i'll be getting back to you on that very soon...