LinkFerret

About

LinkFerret is a system for crowdsourced tagging and commenting on external articles in such a way as to gradually build a library of information and commentary on a wide variety of topics. It may also be usable as a blogging system; I am still exploring how it will work in order to determine if this makes sense. I'm thinking that it could be a good replacement for the pre-Google+ version of Google Reader.

Status: design phase

Features

• user features:
  • tag URLs using:
    • keywords (non-normalized nomenclature)
    • site-specific categories (normalized nomenclature)
    • common information such as title, posting date, author, etc.
    • relationship to other URLs (e.g. if one article is commentary on another)
    • user ratings, in multiple dimensions (validity of reasoning, validity of facts, quality of writing, agreement with conclusions...)
      • title, content summaries, discussion, and ratings could be combined to feed a crowdsourced search engine
    • "channel" - to which other users may subscribe
  • add user commentary
  • multi-user threaded discussion
  • feed reader:
    • import/export OPML
  • subscribe to other users' posts:
    • include or exclude specific channels
    • include or exclude unspecified channels
    • digest or individual posts
      • selectable interval for digests
    • keep track of which posts you have read
  • UI:
    • enter new links/posts
      • enter links to additional commentary
      • bulk entry of multiple links from text file/paste
    • search existing links
    • view all posts attached to a link
    • view other users' posts
    • comment on other users' posts
    • search content of posts and comments, by user or globally
• service features:
  • access all non-private data via API to allow:
    • federation of multiple sites
    • use of data within any site

Brass Tacks

• /sql (tables etc.)
• /code
• /forms