User:Martind/Document Log Discovery Platform

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Problem Statement

We're seeing an increase in the publication of vast corpuses of document logs, often in the form of message archives, usually in a structured message format. They're all quite overwhelming: how to make sense of such a vast amount of text? How to identify sections that are relevant?

  • Can we allow large number of interested parties to annotate these documents?
    • What kinds of annotations do we want to make? (Information structure)
    • How can we make that easy? (Tools)
    • Can we identify good conventions and techniques for the above that are more generally applicable? (Patterns of use)
  • Finally, can we think of these functions as a layer on top of mere archives, and construct them as a physically separate service?
    • How would such a service integrate with layers below (archives) and above (editorial, exploration)?

Note:

  • These notes are limited to text document corpuses, and won't attempt to incorporate numerical/statistical/other data repositories.
  • Specifically no attempt is made to address information within a document, or to address information aggregated across documents, if such derivative forms don't already exist.

Exemplary Publications

The ultimate goal:

  • Being able to construct links between multiple representations of the same documents
    • Across mirrors (same content, same addressing scheme, different location)
    • Across types of archive browsers (some may have further annotations, all may have different addressing schemes, all will have different locations)
  • Being able to identify existing references by detecting such links
    • E.g. via Twitter/Google search

Look out for:

  • Canonical document URLs (implicit, or explicit via rel="canonical")
  • Corpus IDs
  • Document IDs
  • Document ranges for timeline browsers
  • Additional presentation information, e.g. reading offset
  • How to construct canonical URLs from document IDs
  • Existing services that interact with this archive

WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs

WikiLeaks Embassy Cables

SpaceLog

  • Document URL: http://apollo13.spacelog.org/01:06:43:11/#log-line-110591
  • Document range URL: http://apollo13.spacelog.org/01:06:43:11/01:06:43:30/#log-line-110591
  • Corpus ID: apollo13
  • Document ID: 01:06:43:11
  • Presentation parameters:
    • Reading offset ID: #log-line-110591
  • To construct canonical URLs:
    • Document URL: URL template, corpus ID, document ID, reading offset
    • Document range URL: URL template, corpus ID, document IDs, reading offset
    • No means to query corpus ID, reading offset for a document ID
  • Other services:
    • URLs are actively being shared (and annotated) on Twitter
  • Other observations:
    • Has rel="canonical"
    • Document IDs are actually timestamps.
    • There are collisions within a corpus, which does not greatly affect presentation, but may affect integration with other services
    • There are collisions across corpuses (concurrent space missions, e.g. Gemini 6A and 7)

Twitter

Eur-Lex

  • Document URL: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:333:0001:0005:EN:PDF
  • Corpus ID: OJ:L (Official Journal, legislation series)
  • Document ID: 2010:333:0001:0005
  • Presentation parameters:
    • Language: EN
    • Format: PDF
  • To construct canonical document URL: URL template + corpus ID + document ID + presentation parameters
  • Other observations:
    • Corpus ID could be understood as part of the document ID, we may not need to treat them separately
  • Other services:
    • TODO. They are likely to exist.

TODO

  • Patent databases
  • Databases of law
  • ...

Observations

Presentation

  • Would like to be able to extract document content (excerpt or in full) to present it along with editorial information and other context
    • Though don't make it too complex. Core use case: WikiLeaks text archives
  • Would like to offer editorial tools in a manner that they can easily be integrated on other sites, e.g. as part of an editorial publication

Editorial Functions

  • It seems useful to be able to link/group individual messages
  • It seems useful to be able to annotate content (with text, links)
  • It seems useful to be able to contribute anonymously
  • It seems useful to be able to annotate/qualify editorial contributions by others

Interestingness, Popularity

  • What constitutes an "interesting" section of a document is a matter of perspective.
    • Such annotations become more useful if they're linked to a context (e.g. "this cable relates to news story X")
  • Relationship between "popular" and "interesting" items:
    • Much easier to establish "popularity" via simple (implicit, explicit) voting mechanisms: Q&A sites, collaborative news sites, click tracking etc.
    • "Interestingness" requires more work, since it is the result of an editorial process. This makes it slower, potentially tedious to demonstrate, and error prone.
    • The latter could however feed into the former: items that are widely perceived as interesting
      • To best accomplish this we should attempt to simplify the workflow of an editorial process.

Interoperability

  • Many parties will already build browsers for document log archives, with varying ways of navigating such content.
    • We don't need to duplicate those efforts, but we should integrate with them.

Addressing Schemes for Archives

  • Need a shared addressing scheme that works across archives, archive browsers
    • Based on permalinks?
    • Definite goal: to place links. Ability to send reader to the source material
    • Optional goal: simple API. Ability to load source material by forming an address. (This places more requirements on the nature of the archive of the respective source material.)
  • Alternatively: need a method of translating between different addressing schemes
    • Start with a review of link structures of a wide spectrum of archives
  • Should publish best practises for a good addressing scheme
    • Document the structure of individual addressing schemes
    • Publish recommendations for addressing schemes, terminology used: common conventions
  • ...

Spacelog highlights:

  • Addressing schemes become more complex for timeline browsers
  • This document log is not just a collection of independent documents, but a sequence of directly related events
  • The primary reading mode is in context: items are always presented within a timeline
    • Want to show documents leading up to and succeeding the highlighted documents
  • As a consequence, an address is a tuple of a) a document ID or pair of document IDs (start, end) and b) a visual offset that anchors the start of the reading position
  • This is mostly an artefact of timeline presentation within a browser
    • Want to anchor reading position at the first highlighted document. The reader can then scroll up to get context

Content licenses

  • A good discovery platform may want to republish content from linked archives to be able to present them in a coherent manner
    • In the case of documents published by governments and NGOs the data may either be in the public domain, or will have an explicit license
    • In the case of document leaks the legal status of this data may not be clear obvious, and there may not be an explicit license

User Flows

Hunt & Gather

  • Browse documents for a supported archive on any of its mirrors
  • Click "annotate" button
    • Service detects repository, corpus, document ID
    • Service allows to amend existing editorial work for this corpus, document (yours, everybody's), or to start a new context
    • Service presents editorial tools (annotate, link, publish, ...)
  • Repeat

Review

  • Browse: service has lists of editorial work (search, recent, my, popular, ...)
  • Open one editorial context (which either belongs to a person, group, or represents the total/global work for this context)
    • Service presents source material, all editorial information, links to additional services relating to the referenced archive(s)
    • Service allows feedback (voting, amendments, comments)
  • Repeat

Links

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