Discussion-Threads for a citation to enable collaborative reviews

datentaste

Hello,
first I'll have to praise the developer of zotero - it's a great tool!

One feature I would like to see in zotero is the ability to review a source (paper, book etc.) collaboratively. There should be a thread like in a forum, allowing users to easy comment on a citation as well on other comments or review-notes.

At the moment this could be realized by the use of 'notes'-functionality, which is (great) also synced within a group-library. But it's not that sophisticated as you can't see _who_ has created a note _when_, nor you can see the history of comments on a source.

For our institute this is this a major feature, thus at the moment we can't see discussions on papers of our colleagues. But this is important due evaluating the reliability and impact of a source. Indeed it's a feature you'll only need if you work in teams with group-libraries but it would improve selection of appropriate papers.

Thank you in advance
Johannes

fbennett

Zotero itself isn't really designed for use as a discussion forum. You could attach a link to the item that points at a discussion forum (such as a weblog post with comments enabled) that is dedicated to discussion of that item, though. Would that serve your needs?

datentaste

This is a possibility... but has also a drawback. Zotero can't consider this (extern stored) discussion in its report-function. (We use reports to select sources from large bibliographies for our papers).

As I mentioned above, would it be possible to make the creator and timestamp of a "zotero-note" visible to the other group-members?

fbennett

Zotero can't consider this (extern stored) discussion in its report-function.

You could build an extension plugin that would do so, though. (I suggested an alternative because I don't think a proposal to build forum discussion functionality into the core of Zotero will get much traction.)

Gitty K

I think groups can have their own discussion boards. I believe this feature must be enabled in the group settings first ("enable comments").

bdarcus

This points out a flaw in notes as currently implemented. Right now, there is no way to see who has authored a note in the Zotero UI. This is a major PITA if you're collaborating. So first things first is that the UI needs to indicate who edits or owns note content.

For Dan, real world use case:

I am working with a group of grad students on a seminar and related paper. As we all work, we add items to our private group, and then add notes to those. We then use those notes to put together the paper manuscript. Awkward to do when you don't know where the note comes from (unless you do something awkward like sign you name on each one).

dstillman

So first things first is that the UI needs to indicate who edits or owns note content.

This is planned.

ajlyon

Perhaps something like this could be done on Zotero.org in group libraries...

I'm imagining a system in which an item in the library could have an associated discussion. Perhaps that discussion could then be available as read-only notes in the Zotero add-on.