Docuss: an experiment on how to embed discussions in web pages

Thanks @tophee.

The current prototype works by putting the grabbed web site in an iframe on the left, and a Discourse instance in an iframe on the right. The Discourse instance runs a specific plugin that changes Discourse display and exchanges data (user actions) with the left iframe. There’s also an external database to store the section-topics associations.

Hypothes.is and Open Annotation sound great! I’ll have a deeper look at them.

This is how I see annotations vs. discussions for working on a document:

  • Annotations/comments:
    • Supported by many tools
    • Can be put directly inside a document → nice and easy UX
    • Suitable for a small amount of comments → ok for traditional (small teams) collaborative work
  • Discussions & votes:
    • AFAIK, only supported by a few specific tools in the field of participatory democracy
    • Can’t be put directly inside a document → problematic UX
    • Suitable for thousands of comments → ok for massively collaborative work
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