== CRIT Mediator ==
A now-defunct WebAnnotation project by KaPingYee of the ForesightInstitute. Was at crit.org. (WARNING: As of late 2004 crit.org points to an adult site.)

* A paper about CritLink: http://zesty.ca/pubs/cscw-2002-crit.pdf
* A report about CritLink from 1997, with photos of KaPingYee demonstrating it to DougEngelbart: http://www.islandone.org/Foresight/WebEnhance/Progress9708.html
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You can temporarily get the main part of the software here: [http://www.stanford.edu/~bshanks/crit-0.9.2.tar.gz crit-0.9.2.tar.gz] ''Link currently 2006/11/06 defunct, but'' [http://zesty.ca/ this one] ''works.''

(one small patch I made is here: [http://www.stanford.edu/~bshanks/cgi_query_links_in_etext.diff cgi_query_links_in_etext.diff]; see AnnotationWikiIssues for a description of it)

Here is one nonessential bit of the software: [http://www.stanford.edu/~bshanks/critmail.tar.gz critmail.tar.gz].

All of these download links will probably go dead sometime in the summer of '03.

Offered threaded annotations, email notification, thread visualization, and other features.

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FridemarPache proposed that CritLink allowed the following benefits to wiki.

* Email-notification for Changes
* Reconciles the polarities in Wiki:ChangeAndPersistenceReconciledInPublic
* Protects AuthorshipCredit by keeping track of who said what
* Invites external friendly collaborative people (BrainDrain in both directions)
* Fine-grained link-targets
* Displays ExternalBackLink''''''s
* Visually traces threads (if you combine it with the CritMap applet) (see http://www.cocoon.com/critmap-gif.html)
* Fine-grained annotations for specific text
* WikiControlOfCritLink (see [http://www.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=AnnotationWiki&wikiid=25 SeedWiki:AnnotationWiki])
* WikiCritLinkBridge

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I like WikiControlOfCritLink the best of some of the above options; I would like to use CritLink to essentially carry on a wiki-style discussion around arbitrary pages on the web. Yes, TransClusion does this, but i would like to see discussion notes come up whenever i go to a web page (not just whenever i happen upon that discussion in a wiki). This could, of course, be accomplished easier by a database of which Wiki pages refer to which other web pages (a web browser addon could query that database).

The benefit of CritLink over simply having the database is that when there is a discussion about some other, potentially large, readonly page on the web, it does seem reasonable to have comments attached to specific parts of that page, rather than quoting parts of that page in the comments.  Another benefit here is that if you are reading a news story, you will get a sense as to whether you want to go and read certain comments based on  which parts of the text they are attached to.

Maybe instead of directing everything through crit.org, different wikis would be able to add on to web pages. You would choose which Wikis to see the web "through", like a lens (i think this might be related to ViewPoint, but I'm not well-read enough yet to be sure).  -- BayleShanks

Also, there is no reason that everything would have to be based on the server at crit.org. -- BayleShanks

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Fridemar also proposed the idea that CritLink allows document mode text to reside within a wiki, and ThreadMode text to reside within the Crit network as annotations.

Several folk disagreed, pointing out that:

* No one is likely to read crit.org comments.
* Comments logically belong on the page itself.
* This is a crude replacement for ThreadingForWiki.
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See also CritMap, AnnoteaProject, AnnotationEngine, WebAnnotation.
Wiki:CritLink

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CategoryWebTechnology CategoryWebAnnotation