From the perspective of a user—that is, a docbase author or reviewer—there are two parallel interfaces to the docbase. You can start with the generated HTML table of contents, cross-linked with the HTML chapters (see Figure 9.5). Or you can subscribe to the newsgroup, where commentary intersperses with another view of the table of contents (see Figure 9.4).

The relationship between these two views of the docbase is admittedly a bit tricky. For example, to what URL should the comment handler refer you when you submit your comment? There are various possibilities:

The last option might seem best, since the posted comment includes a backlink to its origin in the docbase. Unfortunately both the Microsoft and Netscape newsreaders handle the transition from web space to news space poorly, as we saw in Part I. Neither establishes the desired context in which to view related comments. So the best we can do by way of newsgroup referral is to go to the newsgroup itself, using a URL like news://hostname/groupware.v3. Since this maneuver results in severe loss of context, it’s probably best to go with the first option—transfer of control back to the docbase at the comment’s point of origin. Arguably this is better anyway, since a reviewer who has posted a comment may be more inclined to keep on reading and commenting than to take a wandering detour through the marginalia.

At some point, when the review process moves from initial feedback to collaborative discussion, the focus might shift to the newsgroup. To use it most effectively, participants should subscribe to the group when it’s first created and mark all messages—that is, the autogenerated framework corresponding to the docbase’s outline—as read. In the Netscape Collabra newsreader, do this: Message → Mark → All Read. In Microsoft Outlook Express, do this: Edit → Mark all as Read. This action ensures that subsequently posted comments will stand out from the framework, since newsreaders highlight unread messages. You can also restrict the view to only the unread messages. In Collabra, use View → Messages → Unread; in Outlook Express, use View → Current View → Unread.

Once you’ve read a comment, the unread-message views will no longer include it. How can you isolate comments once you’ve read them? Since all comment postings will be newer than the framework postings, a reverse date view of the newsgroup will bring them to the top of the list. You can also categorize comments by sorting on the Author: field.

Postings can come from two sources. The comment form invoked from the docbase is a useful way to seed the discussion with initial comments. Once these are bound to the correct spot in the framework, additional newsreader-initiated discussion can grow around them, as normal NNTP response subtrees. This mode of collaboration does, of course, raise interesting sociological questions. Who will have access to the docbase and to the newsgroup? Should some users be given posting rights to the newsgroup, others only reading rights, others no access at all? For a small and tightly knit team of authors and reviewers, the simplest access policy is probably best—and is certainly easiest. That policy might be to use HTTP basic authentication to protect the docbase and NNTP’s authinfo mechanism to protect the newsgroup. Note that for comments that originate from the docbase, there’s a kind of single-sign-on effect. Since a CGI script posts the comment, a user need only log on to the web server.