A number of posts (such as
http://groups.google.com/group/google-co-op/browse_thread/thread/ad46...)
have raised a number of questions. We will answer these to the best of
our abilities. Some of these questions should be incorporated into the
FAQ, in which case, we will refer you to the FAQ.

Q1. Why does the "labeled <label> by <user>" line in the individual
search results sometimes include the "by <user>" part, and sometimes
not?
A1. Annotations come from a variety of sources. From Google users, from
in-house experts at Google, from algorithms, etc. The "by <user>" part
appears only when there is a user.

Q2. Why can I not see some of my subscriptions in the
http://www.google.com/coop/manage/subscriptions page?
A2. This is a problem that is being fixed.

Q3. What do attributes in annotations do?  Is this feature currently
enabled?
A3. This is for future expansion. It is not currently used.

Q4. What do scores do?  Is this feature currently enabled?
A4. Using the score, you can control the amount by which a particular
result (that has the label) gets moved up or down in the ranking.

Q5. How does the background label work?  Is it currently enabled?
A5. Having a background label (say foo) is equivalent to having a
more:foo in every query in that context. This feature is enabled.

Q6. Are there any plans to increase the limit of 1000 annotations?
A6. Yes. Soon, we will allow more annotations.

Guha, an engineer on Co-op

Guha, it's great to have you participate in this forum!

I'd like to pose a couple of follow-up questions:

Here's a case I see with no "by <user>" phrase in the label.   I
subscribe to profile A first, which has a context file defining tsome
labels and TopicSearchTriggers. I subscribe to profile B second, which
does *not* have a context file, but uses the same labels from profile
A's context file.  As a separate user, I subscribe to both profiles, do
a search and get a result set that contains URLs labeled by both
profiles.  URLs labeled by profile A have the "by <user>" part, those
from profile B do not.  A bug?

I noticed that uploading an image seems to fix both the problem of not
showing my subscriptions and not showing me as a subscriber to profiles
I've subscribed to.

Please elaborate further if possible.  The description you gave sounds
very similar to the function of the "mode" attribute on a context
label.  How do scores and modes relate?  What is the precedence or
rules of interaction?

Could you provide an example of the syntax of specifying a background
label?  The documentation (at least last I checked) didn't show a
general form or example.

Great.  I'm contemplating a project that may well have many thousands
of labels.  Will I be able to manage them through a single account, or
is there some notion of federations of profiles?

Thank you for jumping in!

Thank you.

You should see attribution for each user who has contributed a label,
irrespective of whose context it is. Please let us know if you don't
see this.

Yes, we will only show subscribers with profiles that have an image. We
encourage you to flesh out your profile.

The mode is for all occurrances of the label. The score is for a
particular
annotation (with that label). So, the mode and score will be combined.
This
feature has not yet been enabled.

I assume you mean thousands of annotations and not annotations of
labels. Yes, you will be able to do that. If you and someone else want
to share your annotations, you can also do that by subscribing to the
other person.

Guha, Co-op engineer

Yes, I meant thousands of annotations.

Thanks.

 > Having a background label (say foo) is equivalent
 > to having a  more:foo in every query in that context.
 > This feature is enabled.

To test my understanding of this explanation, I re-read
the documentation, which currently says:

 > Background labels are specified in XML just like
 > any other label.

Like others who have posted, I interpret this to mean:
"take a legal <Label> element and stick it inside a
<BackgroundLabels> element". However, something like
this:

    <BackgroundLabels>
                <Label name="fredrick" />
    </BackgroundLabels>

continues to just produce an error message:

    Required label data not defined for label fredrick

One can endlessly guess at syntax, but since the
error detection at upload is far from robust, many
things are accepted that apparently do nothing. For
example, one might try this instead:

    <BackgroundLabels name="fredrick" />

which uploads without error, but appears to do
nothing at all.

It seems unlikely that anyone outside of Google is going
to stumble upon the correct syntax for <BackgroundLabels>
without a new hint :-).

Thanks!