👓 Thoughts on Audrey Watters’ “Thoughts on Annotation” | Jon Udell

Read Thoughts on Audrey Watters’ “Thoughts on Annotation” by Jon Udell (Jon Udell)

Back in April, Audrey Watters’ decided to block annotation on her website. I understand why. When we project our identities online, our personal sites become extensions of our homes. To some online writers, annotation overlays can feel like graffiti. How can we respect their wishes while enabling conversations about their writing, particularly conversations that are intimately connected to the writing? At the New Media Consortium conference recently, I was finally able to meet Audrey in person, and we talked about how to balance these interests. Yesterday Audrey posted her thoughts about that conversation, and clarified a key point:

You can still annotate my work. Just not on my websites.

Exactly! To continue that conversation, I have annotated that post here, and transcluded my initial set of annotations below.