Currently there are a wide variety of "annotations" performed on our content with a plethora of different ad-hoc tools, using either inline markup or a separate linked database. Inline markup can be an extension tag, template, specialized wikilink syntax, or a combination, such as [[mw:Citoid|citations]], [https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/ Semantic MediaWiki], and [[mw:Extension:Proofread_Page|Proofread Page]]. Annotations which have successfully been moved out of wikitext include [[mw:Interlanguage_links|interlanguage links]] and [[mw:Wikibase/Installation/Advanced_configuration#Mixing_Wikidata_and_local_interlanguage_links|Wikidata]]. Annotations performed on media resources include [[metawiki:Structured_Data_on_Commons|Structured Data on Commons]] and the [[mw:Extension:FileAnnotations|FileAnnotations extension]] (and [[phab:T146397#4451340|related projects]]). This session discusses a general annotation service, for example [[:en:User:Cscott/Ideas/Amazing_Article_Annotations|Amazing Article Annotations]], as it could be applied to transcriptions. In particular, we would like to go through the specialized transcription tools one by one (OCR, [[mw:Extension:Proofread_Page|Proofread Page]], [[c:Commons:Timed_Text|Timed Text]], the [[c:Template:Inscription|Inscription]] template, [[mw:Content_translation|Content Translation]], etc) and determine to what degree they could be simplified and improved with a standard annotation service, built on the [https://www.w3.org/annotation/ W3C Annotation standard]. By moving the annotation out of wikitext syntax perhaps certain new features could also be made possible, which were previously held back by the desire not to bloat the original resource with transcription-specific markup. Further, a general annotation service can provide greater editing support by providing common editing tools and allowing annotations to remain anchored even when the resource is edited.
Speakers: C. Scott Ananian