Add Position Specifiers

w3c / wpub-ann

Web Annotation Extensions for Web Publications

https://w3c.github.io/wpub-ann/

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Add Position Specifiers #17

Closed tcole3 closed 6 years ago

tcole3 commented 6 years ago

Added a new kind of specifier for describing and identifying a position within a text or data stream. Changes are more extensive, but better isolated from existing Selector and State specifiers Still need real-world use cases, especially for side-bias.

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iherman commented 6 years ago

Two additional, editorial notes

[ ] Right before 1.1 I believe we should emphasize that we introduce a completely different concept, namely Position selector, with two specific Positions. Ie, on the top level we have now three concepts and not two.
[ ] A slightly more convoluted modification of the example in 5.1 is that George wants to insert some characters in the middle of a word (e.g., for taking care of a spelling mistake) and wants to make sure that the relevant comment or user feedback stays with the part of the word after the position even in case the word is automatically hyphenated. That may be closer to what "bias" means.

iherman commented 6 years ago

As has been noted many times, we really need clear use cases for this.

My comment on the (otherwise closed) PR #15 remains: implementors have to do something fundamentally different than what they have at their disposal in a browser: while State and Selector implementations can rely on HTTP facilities and DOM implementations, respectively, implementing positions pushes them in a very different, possibly unchartered territory. If really necessary for strong use cases, we should indeed do this (and this PR is, technically, clear and clean for that!), but I am not convinced of the necessity.

I am not opposed to merge this PR and discuss afterwards, but a roll-back from it may be complicated, because the changes are spread all over the place. I would really prefer having a decision before a possible merge...

CC @GarthConboy @TzviyaSiegman @llemeurfr @rkwright

iherman commented 6 years ago

For admin: this PR is relevant for issue #9

tcole3 commented 6 years ago

I think I've addressed issues raised by Ivan's review of this PR.

While might still benefit from further wordsmithing, would like to merge as is (especially since there are already subsequent PRs pending). Will do so later today or tomorrow morning, unless there is objection.

I still have my doubts about side-bias, but I'm convinced there are non-annotation use cases for a clean way to reference position in a text or byte stream (rather than just a selection / fragment of content). Also think Position specifiers will be handy for refinement.

iherman commented 6 years ago

I will merge it, to make the discussion cleaner for others