32
temporal context may help in determining to what extent they have been executed or ig-
nored.
The utility of cross-version comparisons also implies a need to be able to temporally for-
ward links, so that a system can provide the most accurate possible view of the past and pre-
sent state of a link target. Even the deletion of a target may be highly significant, as when a
paragraph is deleted instead of being rewritten, or having its argument updated. This is an-
other reason for the system to provide localized information about changes affecting docu-
ment history in some published hypertexts, in addition to the authoring considerations ad-
vanced earlier.
Naturally, it must also be possible to delete such historical information as appropriate.
Even a publication that committed, as a matter of editorial policy, to updating its stories for
accuracy and preserving the full record of publication, would be highly unlikely to want to
expose internal editorial processes, drafts, and editing changes. This would be true even if
retention of this information were an important part of its internal editorial process.
Even if editorial history is effaced, the combination of version-number information and
temporal forwarding allows for an elegant way to update links automatically when the desti-
nation document is changed. Furthermore, it simultaneously satisfies the link-follower’s de-
sire to see that the linked document has changed (thus enabling a critical appraisal of po-
tential changes in the link’s meaning), and their desire to see the actual destination, even if
it has changed since the link was originally made. This kind of scenario is one reason that
Internet standards groups are attempting to standardize editing and version management
protocols for the World Wide Web (Goland, Whitehead et al. 1998; Slein, Vitali et al. 1998).
1.10 Requirements and goals
In this section, we shall briefly review some of the major points of the foregoing survey
of systems and ideas, and extract the general principles that have guided the evolution of
temporal context may help in determining to what extent they have been executed or ig-
nored.
The utility of cross-version comparisons also implies a need to be able to temporally for-
ward links, so that a system can provide the most accurate possible view of the past and pre-
sent state of a link target. Even the deletion of a target may be highly significant, as when a
paragraph is deleted instead of being rewritten, or having its argument updated. This is an-
other reason for the system to provide localized information about changes affecting docu-
ment history in some published hypertexts, in addition to the authoring considerations ad-
vanced earlier.
Naturally, it must also be possible to delete such historical information as appropriate.
Even a publication that committed, as a matter of editorial policy, to updating its stories for
accuracy and preserving the full record of publication, would be highly unlikely to want to
expose internal editorial processes, drafts, and editing changes. This would be true even if
retention of this information were an important part of its internal editorial process.
Even if editorial history is effaced, the combination of version-number information and
temporal forwarding allows for an elegant way to update links automatically when the desti-
nation document is changed. Furthermore, it simultaneously satisfies the link-follower’s de-
sire to see that the linked document has changed (thus enabling a critical appraisal of po-
tential changes in the link’s meaning), and their desire to see the actual destination, even if
it has changed since the link was originally made. This kind of scenario is one reason that
Internet standards groups are attempting to standardize editing and version management
protocols for the World Wide Web (Goland, Whitehead et al. 1998; Slein, Vitali et al. 1998).
1.10 Requirements and goals
In this section, we shall briefly review some of the major points of the foregoing survey
of systems and ideas, and extract the general principles that have guided the evolution of
