Spec 0.4 not yet finished, just working on it. So far, have a look at spec 0.3 and at the existing feedback in weblogs.

CommentsTrack - Specification - Working Draft, v0.4

Document History

Version .. Date ..... Name ............... Changes 0.1 ...... 17Aug04 .. Jan Piotrowski ..... First Draft 0.2 ...... 19Aug04 .. Helge Fahrnberger .. Small changes, Workarounds added 0.3 ...... 20Aug04 .. Helge Fahrnberger .. Workaround A3 added 0.4 ...... 07Sep04 .. Jan Piotrowski ..... Complete revision

Abstract

CommentsTrack can help you to keep track of discussions anywhere on the web. It allows you to collect all the comments that you post and what people reply to them. Data of monitored discussions is merged into a format of your choice so you can easily access it.

Discussions could be comments in a weblog or a thread in a discussion board software, as an output format there could be used RSS to be monitored with your favorite feed reader, a thread-like webpage to view with your browser or email to read in your email-application. The CommentsTrack technology might also allow you to monitor discussions without having participated yet. It is a technology aimed to make your life in the web and blogosphere easier and more comfortable, and to make discussions in weblogs more lively.

The impulse to develop CommentsTrack was the need to get informed about replies on comments in a weblog. It was impossible to visit all the weblogs to watch for new replies, so we had to find a solution.

Terminology

Thread: Chain of postings on a subject: discussion
User: Person that comments to a Thread
RemoteSoftware: Software that runs that Thread

CT: abbr. of CommentsTrack
PingScript: Software that can connect to CT-Script
CT-Script: Software that can handle pings/connections from PingScript and modify CT-Database
CT-Database: Data base that contains all monitored data, modified by CT-Script

Functional Goals and Aims

CT-Database should contain all comments and replies to comments User has posted anywhere on the web
Simple usage, also usable for non-geek User
Comfortable usage, must not affect User (with and without CT)

Technical Goals and Aims

Simple specifications to make implementation easy
Independence of platform, built on HTTP 1.1
Independence of centralized services and servers
Compatibility / implementability with all major weblog and BBS software systems
Free and Open Source

Notes

Output: Output-format and -design of CT-Database doesn't matter yet, can be changed later easily.
Security: Not yet considered, first have to find a useable and working technical solution
Related to and inspired by technologies such as trackback or pingback

- Not yet worked on text below -

How it works, Simple Overview

Form-field is being added to comments-forms of RemoteBlog
User pastes his personal CT-Script-URI into that form-field
RemoteBlog uses PingScript to inform this CT-Script-URI about new comments
CT-Script publishes these comments into a personal CT-Feed and stores them in database
CT-Feed can be consumed by User via FeedReader

Technical Details

Unique identifier for CT-Script to allocate data in CT-Feed: permalink, should be unique and persistent
Transmission of comments between RemoteBlog and CT-Scrip: undecided, see below
All further technical details depend on transmission solution