+1 John http://Bresl.in
> On 5 Oct 2014, at 15:39, "Ivan Herman" <i...@w3.org> wrote: > > This is not a direct answer to Daniel, but rather expanding on what he said. > Actually, he and I were (and still are) in the same IW3C2 committee, ie, we > share the experience; and I was one of those (although the credit really goes > to Bob Hopgood, actually, who was pushing that the most) who tried to come up > with a proper XHTML template. > > The real problem is still the missing tooling. Authors, even if technically > savy like this community, want to do what they set up to do: write their > papers as quickly as possible. They do not want to spend their time going > through some esoteric CSS massaging, for example. Let us face it: we are not > yet there. The tools for authoring are still very poor. This in spite of the > fact that many realize that PDF is really not the format for our age; we need > much more than a reproduction of a printed page digitally (as someone > referred to in the thread I really suffer when I have to read, let alone > review, an article in PDF on my iPad...). > > But I do see an evolution that might change in the coming years. Laura > dropped the magic word on the early phases if this thread: ePub. ePub is a > packaged (zip archived) HTML site, with some additional information. It is > the format that most of the ebook readers understand (hey, it can even be > converted into a Kindle format:-). Both Firefox and Chrome have ePub reader > extensions available and Mac OS comes with a free ebook reader (iBook) that > is based on it. I expect (hope) that the convergence between ePub and > browsers will bring these even closer in the coming years. Because ePub is a > packaged web site, with the core content in HTML5 (or SVG), metadata can be > added to the content in RDFa, microdata, embedded JSON-LD; in fact, metadata > can also be added to the archive as a separate file so if you are crazy > enough you can even add RDF data in RDF/XML (no, please, don't do it:-). And, > of course, it can be as much as a hypertext as you can just master:-) > > Tooling? No, not yet:-( Well, not yet for lambda users. But there, too, there > is an evolution. The fact is that publishers are working on "XML first" (or > "HTML first") workflows. O'Reilly's Atlas tool[1] means that authors prepare > their documents in, essentially, HTML (well, a restricted profile thereof), > and the output is then produced in EPUB, PDF, or pure HTML at the end. > Companies are created that do similar things and where small(er) publishers > can develop full projects (Metrodigi, Inkling, Hachette, ...; but I do not > think it is possible to use these for a big conference, although, who > knows?). Importantly to this community, these tools also include annotation > facilities, akin to MS Word's commenting tools. > > Where does it take us _now_? Much against my instinct and with a bleeding > heart I have to accept that conferences of the size of WWW, but even ISWC or > ESWC, cannot reasonably ask their submitters to submit in ePub (or HTML). > Yet. Not today. It is a chicken and egg problem, and change may come only > with events, as well as more progressive scholarly publishers, experimenting > with this. Just like Daniel (and Bernadette) I would love to see that > happening for smaller workshops (if budget allows, I could imagine a workshop > teaming up with, say, Metrodigi to produce the workshop's proceedings). But I > am optimistic that the change will happen within a foreseeable time and our > community (as any scholarly community, I believe) will have to prepare itself > for a change in this area. > > Adding my 2¢ to Daniel's:-) > > Ivan > > P.S. For LaTeX users: I guess the main advantage of LaTeX is the math part. > And this is the saddest story of all: MathML has been around for a long time, > and it is, actually, part of ePUB as well, but authoring proper mathematics > is the toughest with the tools out there. Sigh... > > P.S.2 B.t.w., W3C has just started work on Web Annotations. Watch that > space... > > > [1] https://atlas.oreilly.com > [2] http://metrodigi.com > [3] https://www.inkling.com > > > >> On 04 Oct 2014, at 04:14 , Daniel Schwabe <dschw...@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote: >> >> As is often the case on the Internet, this discussion gives me a terrible >> sense of dejá vu. We've had this discussion many times before. >> Some years back the IW3C2 (the steering committee for the WWW conference >> series, of which I am part) first tried to require HTML for the WWW >> conference paper submissions, then was forced to make it optional because >> authors simply refused to write in HTML, and eventually dropped it because >> NO ONE (ok, very very few hardy souls) actually sent in HTML submissions. >> Our conclusion at the time was that the tools simply were not there, and it >> was too much of a PITA for people to produce HTML instead of using the text >> editors they are used to. Things don't seem to have changed much since. >> And this is simply looking at formatting the pages, never mind the whole >> issue of actually producing hypertext (ie., turning the article's text into >> linked hypertext), beyond the easily automated ones (e.g., links to authors, >> references to papers, etc..). Producing good hypertext, and consuming it, is >> much harder than writing plain text. And most authors are not trained in >> producing this kind of content. Making this actually "semantic" in some >> sense is still, in my view, a research topic, not a routine reality. >> Until we have robust tools that make it as easy for authors to write papers >> with the advantages afforded by PDF, without its shortcomings, I do not see >> this changing. >> I would love to see experiments (e.g., certain workshops) to try it out >> before making this a requirement for whole conferences. >> Bernadette's suggestions are a good step in this direction, although I >> suspect it is going to be harder than it looks (again, I'd love to be proven >> wrong ;-)). >> Just my personal 2c >> Daniel >> >> >>> On Oct 3, 2014, at 12:50 - 03/10/14, Peter F. Patel-Schneider >>> <pfpschnei...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> In my opinion PDF is currently the clear winner over HTML in both the >>> ability to produce readable documents and the ability to display readable >>> documents in the way that the author wants them to display. In the past I >>> have tried various means to produce good-looking HTML and I've always gone >>> back to a setup that produces PDF. If a document is available in both HTML >>> and PDF I almost always choose to view it in PDF. This is the case even >>> though I have particular preferences in how I view documents. >>> >>> If someone wants to change the format of conference submissions, then they >>> are going to have to cater to the preferences of authors, like me, and >>> reviewers, like me. If someone wants to change the format of conference >>> papers, then they are going to have to cater to the preferences of authors, >>> like me, attendees, like me, and readers, like me. >>> >>> I'm all for *better* methods for preparing, submitting, reviewing, and >>> publishing conference (and journal) papers. So go ahead, create one. But >>> just saying that HTML is better than PDF in some dimension, even if it were >>> true, doesn't mean that HTML is better than PDF for this purpose. >>> >>> So I would say that the semantic web community is saying that there are >>> better formats and tools for creating, reviewing, and publishing scientific >>> papers than HTML and tools that create and view HTML. If there weren't >>> these better ways then an HTML-based solution might be tenable, but why use >>> a worse solution when a better one is available? >>> >>> peter >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On 10/03/2014 08:02 AM, Phillip Lord wrote: >>>> [...] >>>> >>>> As it stands, the only statement that the semantic web community are >>>> making is that web formats are too poor for scientific usage. >>> [...] >>>> >>>> Phil >> >> Daniel Schwabe Dept. de Informatica, PUC-Rio >> Tel:+55-21-3527 1500 r. 4356 R. M. de S. Vicente, 225 >> Fax: +55-21-3527 1530 Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22453-900, Brasil >> http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~dschwabe > > > ---- > Ivan Herman, W3C > Digital Publishing Activity Lead > Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ > mobile: +31-641044153 > GPG: 0x343F1A3D > WebID: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf#me > > > > >
