Dear all,
I have applied for the Prototyping Inline Comments for the Google Summer of Code.
Essentially, the project is an extension that allows any wiki user to select text and then make an inline comment or a reply to an existing inline comment. Imagine: a user lands in a Wikipedia article, selects one sentence and leaves an inline comment that others can optionally read and reply to.
Users can make useful comments regarding specific part of articles, which will be a part of collaborative work. The key benefit is to users to collaborate easily - because this actually allows you to point to something and comment in direct reference to it. It's like pointing your finger to a piece of paper and telling your friend sitting next to you, which can only be done in person and is currently impossible over the Internet. So it's a really powerful feature for collaborations since it makes one of the Internet-impossibles into a possible action.
That was for the insertion of a new comment. For the replying part, it will be a format will likely be similar to how threads are like in a forum, for the prototype.
As I go along the project, I will be posting more technical details and updates. From now til the end of the project, I do hope to get everyone's feedback along the way :)