What Is a Bookmark?

Michael asks a good question and opens a can of worms, and starts by noting that "the community bookmark lexicon... [is] minimal: a URL, timestamp, tags". He wonders whether it also needs "additional fields...

• visibility (public vs unlisted)
• notes
• title
• description
• author
• publication date
• site name
• thumbnail image
• canonical URL
• provenance (where a bookmark was re-saved from)"

FWIW, MyHub has some of these (URL, title, timestamp, tags, notes, site name, image, visibility) and has others not on the list: Summary (optional, for the card view), Type (aka Like/Think/Do), and Highlight (for the "Best of" filter).

He investigates other approaches: " KipClip... introduces a separate annotation record for additional metadata and user interaction... Bluesky’s bookmark implementation ... is primarily a saved pointer", but he wants "enough metadata to preserve context if the page changes, redirects, or disappears in the future", which I want too, and with good reason (example why).

But does that belong in the lexicon? Where should the line be drawn between lexicon and "application or service layer... If multiple bookmarking applications are independently storing title, description, author, publication date, and thumbnail information, does it make sense to standardize those fields? Or should a shared bookmark record remain intentionally minimal and leave enrichment entirely up to individual services?" He suggests a spectrum (reference -> reading object -> snapshot), and asks what others think.

My $0.02c is that the bookmark lexicon should be as minimal as possible, so that as many apps as possible can add value to it in different ways. For me, bookmarks are the second step in my content pipeline: once I discover a URL, I want to one-click add it to my reading queue, and then add value to them from there. Adding value means reading; taking notes (best way I know to learn and engage creatively with the content); tagging (to ensure findability); and, optionally, publishing the result (like the post you're reading now).