
Hypothes.is: an open platform for scholarly discussion on the web - sohkamyung
https://hypothes.is/
======
kristopolous
I'm seeing yet another metaweb ... I think either NS4 or IE4 had a built-in
tool do this and even with half the web having it at its fingertips it still
flopped.

The only real metaweb that has worked has been the indirect "share a link" on
a link aggregator + comments - exactly what reddit, slashdot, digg, metafilter
(funny name huh?) and hn are.

The insight is that there Needs To Be A Central, Browsable Repository of What
Pages Have this Meta Content.

Without what is effectively a 21st century web-ring, it's not happening. There
should be a page that shows new stuff and a search engine ... I mean
essentially reddit + wikipedia. The layer has to a centralized interface

~~~
MasterScrat
I did a fun experiment last year with Chrome extensions: for some websites, it
adds comments about the current page from Reddit.

For some websites it actually works quite well. Some users reported it
actually "adds a dimension" to the page.

So while i agree universal metaweb is doomed, I do believe in some specific
additions from relevant sources.

~~~
cven714
Thats interesting, there's been many times I've stumbled on a page
"organically" and wished there were reddit or HN comments I could read about
it. I would use an extension that found them for me.

~~~
ivan_ah
It exists for HN: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
discus...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
discussion/iggcipafbcjfofibfhhelnipahhepmkd)

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sohkamyung
Found via an article on the service at Nature News [1]

[1] "Annotating the scholarly web" [ [http://www.nature.com/news/annotating-
the-scholarly-web-1.18...](http://www.nature.com/news/annotating-the-
scholarly-web-1.18900) ]

~~~
dang
More at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10655563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10655563).

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merraksh
Interesting to see not all major publishers are involved, e.g. Springer and
Elsevier are missing. Given their (especially Elsevier's) policies toward
making content publicly available I'm not too surprised.

[https://hypothes.is/annotating-all-
knowledge/](https://hypothes.is/annotating-all-knowledge/)

~~~
dwhly
We've had discussions with them, they'll take a little longer to engage, but
I'm encouraged that they probably will-- I think annotation is inevitable for
scholarship, regardless of whether it's using our technology or not.

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mintplant
The video emphasizes that this is controlled by users, not site owners, and
that annotations are permanent.

So if, hypothetically, I ever managed to incite the wrath of an internet mob,
they could use this to tack up my family's personal information over my
homepage and various profiles, without me being able to do anything about it.
Great.

~~~
dwhly
They're "permanent" in that they're not controlled by the site owners. But
without effective moderation, a public channel of annotations will become
unusable, so spam and trolls must be dealt with effectively.

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pervycreeper
This is being run as a coalition of corporations, academics, and publishers.
This leaves me with some concerns over just how open, accessible, and
ultimately successful this enterprise will be.

It is clear to me, however, that an annotation layer for the internet is the
future. The time to build this is unquestionably now.

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chx
Hey, the first Kickstarter I backed! Four years ago. Why is this on HN front
page...? Did something happen?

~~~
jacobolus
Seems to still be active
[https://hypothes.is/blog/](https://hypothes.is/blog/)

~~~
fulafel
Not to mention there's a "We're hiring developers" link at the top of every
page.

~~~
juskrey
Which is there every time the seek for the new investors begin.

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IshKebab
This would be great for documentation. The number of times I've found
something incorrect in the Android documentation and had no way to note it for
others...

That said, I think it would have to be officially recommended by a website
before many people would use it.

~~~
dwhly
That's the thinking behind this coalition for the scholarly community.

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messo
I can see myself using this tool. A lot. But I'm missing a vote up(down?)
button on annotations already.

