Introduction
By establishing HTML metadata standards and defining new XML-based file formats, content
providers, e.g., Wikipedia, could specify data, resources, and endpoints (e.g., XML-RPC
endpoints) in webpage metadata for search engines, e.g., Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Google, to
provide end-users with enhanced snippets as indicated in the following visualization.
Visualization
To what regions are cherry blossom trees indigenous?
Logo of content provider
Japan
Most flowering cherry trees are native to Japan and other parts of Asia, and they are
roughly adapted to U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 to 8, though
specific climate requirements vary among different varieties. April 6, 2020
View
Edit
Comment
Discuss
Upvote
Downvote
Subscribe
Share
Discussion of Visualization
The logo of the content provider could also function as either a hyperlink to the content
provider’s main page or a hyperlink to the same address as the “view” menu option.
A search engine could present multiple answers from one or more content providers in
response to an end-user’s question.
Menu Items
View
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to navigate to source content in context.
This may involve a hyperlink using text fragments. With HTML metadata, content providers
could override this default behavior, for example requesting a copy of the text fragment
to a specified URL query parameter.
Edit
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to navigate to content providers’ pages
for editing content.
Comment1
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to enter a comment on the search engine
website, e.g., in a popup-styled widget, and this text comment is relayed to the content
provider via XML-RPC.
Comment2
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to navigate to content provider website
to comment on source content.
Discuss
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to navigate to content provider pages for
discussing source content.
Upvote/Downvote1
When selected, these menu options allow users to upvote/downvote a snippet on the search
engine.
Upvote/Downvote2
When selected, these menu options allow users to upvote/downvote a snippet on the content
provider.
Subscribe1
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to subscribe to receive notifications
from the search engine when source content, e.g., the answer to a question, changes or is
updated.
Subscribe2
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to subscribe to receive notifications
from the content provider when source content, e.g., the answer to a question, changes or
is updated.
Share1
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to share the snippet with other
end-users. The shared URL in this scenario is from the search engine.
Share2
When selected, this menu option allows end-users to share the snippet with other
end-users. The shared URL in this scenario is from the content provider, perhaps with a
text fragment affixed to the shared URL.
Content View Reporting
Related topics include content providers being able to specify endpoints to receive pings
and aggregated pings from search engines for relaying views and usage data. An aggregated
ping is a report which includes aggregated views and usage data, e.g., hourly, daily, or
weekly views and usage data.
Potential Next Steps
Interested individuals and organizations could create and participate in a new W3C
Community Group to discuss these and related topics and to develop HTML metadata and
XML-based document formats.
Conclusion
Thank you. I hope that these ideas were of some interest to you.
Best regards,
Adam Sobieski
http://www.phoster.com