Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

Buzz Archives: W3C/Standards Documentation

HTML5? Check. Accessible HTML5? Um…

The Paciello Group and others are examining the accessibility of HTML5 implementations across the current spate of browsers. Their findings are a little disheartening.

By Aaron Gustafson | February 1st, 2011

HTML5 logo: W3C takes a step in the right direction

With a little back-pedalling, the W3C has moved away from their blanket characterization of modern web tech as “HTML5”.

By Chris Mills | January 28th, 2011

HTML5 logo: be proud, but don’t muddy the waters!

In which we ask that the W3C to come up with a new monicker for the umbrella of modern web technologies.

By Chris Mills | January 18th, 2011

Be a True Blue Beanie Supporter of Web Standards

Monday, November 30, 2009 is the 3rd annual Blue Beanie Day. Started by Doug Vos, Blue Beanie Day is a way to show support for web standards and accessibility. Excerpt from the 3rd Annual Blue Beanie Day Event Page: It’s easy to show your support for web design done ...

By Glenda Sims | November 24th, 2009

Interview with Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification.

You've heard it's coming in 2012. Or maybe 2022. It's certainly not ready yet, but some parts are already in browsers now so for the standards-savvy developers, the future is worth investigating today. Ian "Hixie" Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification, hopes that the spec will go to ...

By Bruce Lawson | May 13th, 2009

Help tidy HTML 5 (and get your name in lights)

The editor of the HTML 5 spec, Ian Hickson, calls for input on issues in the spec—typos, contradictions, or simply confusing bits. If everything goes according to plan, all issues will get a response from the editor before October. He says The plan is to see whether we can shake down the ...

By Bruce Lawson | April 2nd, 2009

WAI ARIA Last Call, and Safari 4

The W3C’s WAI ARIA moves to Last Call Working Draft; appropriately, the Safari 4 Beta is out, featuring improved ARIA support.

By Derek Featherstone | February 24th, 2009

CSS Working Group feeds back to WaSP

Almost exactly a year ago, I asked all interested web professionals to let the CSS Working Group know what they want from CSS. Fantasai, an invited expert in the working group has published her feedback on our requests with information on what the Working Group has done about them. It's unclear ...

By Bruce Lawson | January 16th, 2009

WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation

After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I'd like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards. I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation: WCAG 2.0 and ...

By Matt May | December 11th, 2008

WCAG 2.0 resources

Here's a starter list of some resources to help transition to WCAG 2 from the world of WCAG 1, now the new standard goes to proposed recommendation status. This is just a starter list; please add other resources that you recommend in the comments. It would be great to have ...

By Bruce Lawson | November 6th, 2008

WCAG 2 and mobileOK Basic Tests specs are proposed recommendations

WCAG 2 and the mobileOK Basic Tests specifications have been moved to "proposed recommendation status" by the W3C, which means that the technical material is complete and it has been implemented in real sites. WCAG 2 Shawn Henry writes of WCAG 2, Over the last few months, the Web Content ...

By Bruce Lawson | November 4th, 2008

WCAG 2 now “candidate recommendation”

The W3C announced today that WCAG2 is now a candidate recommendation and is likely to be "live" by the end of the year. The W3C says Candidate Recommendation means that we think the technical content is stable and we want developers and designers to start using WCAG 2.0, to test it out ...

By Bruce Lawson | April 30th, 2008

What do you want from CSS3 – one week left

(Polish translation) As part of the outreach work we're doing in partnership with the W3C's CSS Working group, we invited all web professionals to tell the Working Group what they want from the next version of the spec. As the Working Group's face-to-face meeting is at the end of March, we will ...

By Bruce Lawson | March 2nd, 2008

Tell the CSS WG what you want from CSS3

The W3C's CSS Working Group charter expires on 1 July 2008, so the group will be discussing its revised charter in March this year. Fantasai, an Invited Expert in the group, has put out a call for web professionals to help the working group prioritise its work: The CSSWG plans to ...

By Bruce Lawson | January 18th, 2008

Opera complains to Europe over IE lock-in

Opera Chief Technology Officer and co-inventor of CSS, Håkon Wium Lie has written an open letter to the Web community explaining the reasons that Opera has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Union to force Microsoft to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer and to unbundle Internet ...

By Bruce Lawson | December 13th, 2007

A review of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, May 2007 Working Draft

In last month's Interview with Judy Brewer on WCAG 2.0, we read that:WCAG 2.0 went through several Public Working Drafts in recent years, and a Last Call Working Draft in 2006. Each Working Draft was sent out for public review — altogether to hundreds of individuals, organizations, and lists around ...

By Patrick Lauke | June 11th, 2007

London: Shawn Lawton Henry on WCAG 2.0

Organised by the RNIB, Shawn Lawton Henry will be talking about WCAG 2.0 at Westminster University, New Cavendish campus on Tuesday 5th June 7pm.

By Mike Davies | May 28th, 2007

Current browsers and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

In web accessibility, you’ll often hear emphasis being placed on the duty of web authors to create accessible content. However, this is only one part of the web accessibility equation.One that has been particularly close to me, or rather one that has provided me with a lot of opportunity to ...

By Patrick Lauke | May 20th, 2007

What’s happening with WCAG 2.0?

Following a conversation with Judy Brewer from the W3C back in February, Jared Smith had the chance to interview her and submit some probing questions about what's happening with WCAG 2.0. Thanks Judy...and nice one Jared! See the interview with Judy Brewer on WCAG 2.0 in our WaSP Asks the ...

By Patrick Lauke | May 5th, 2007

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) at ALA

WaSP ILG member Martin Kliehm writes about the WAI draft for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) at A List Apart this week.

By Holly Marie Koltz | April 11th, 2007

CSS Turns 10

Hard to believe it, but Cascading Style Sheets are ten years old!

By Kimberly Blessing | December 20th, 2006

Have Your Say about the Future of HTML

This article has been written on behalf of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) and has been cross posted on The Web Standards Project, Lachy’s Log, Molly.com and 456 Berea Street. There’s been a lot of discussion about the W3C’s recent decision to continue the development of HTML ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 7th, 2006

Video Presentation: Douglas Crockford on the “Theory of the DOM”

Douglas Crockford, discoverer of JSON and JavaScript evangelist/veteran has given a training on the theory of the DOM lately and the videos are available on the web. The course takes you through the theory of the DOM, how browsers implement it and what the problems with the DOM and the ...

By Christian Heilmann | October 18th, 2006

Misplaced Anger: A Rebuttal to Zeldman’s Criticism of the W3C

There’s been discussion in the community about unrest at the W3C. This isn’t exactly news to most, particularly if you’ve been following the WCAG 2.0 saga. This time, however, the criticism comes from a strong voice, none other than Jeffrey Zeldman.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | July 26th, 2006

IBM Endorses Dojo and Lends Accessibility Support

On Monday, IBM officially announced its support for the Dojo Toolkit JavaScript framework. This announcement comes soon after the creation of the Dojo Accessibility email list, and like its other open source donations, IBM’s support for Dojo includes a major emphasis on accessibility for people with disabilities. Several weeks ago, Dojo ...

By James Craig | June 6th, 2006

WCAG review period extended

The comment period for WCAG 2 has been extended to Thursday, June 22. If you are thinking about giving feedback, I suggest reading the directions for commenters. The ATF will be publishing a broader set of issues shortly, and working to help the WCAG Working Group cover narrower technical issues as ...

By Matt May | May 26th, 2006

getElementsByTagNames()

getElementsByTagNames() returns elements with several tag names in the order they appear in the document.

By Peter-Paul Koch | January 30th, 2006

Star HTML and Microsoft IE7

Chris Wilson, Group Program Manager for IE Platform and Security at Microsoft, and Position is Everything's Big John Gallant have been having a conversation about * html in Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7 for Windows (IE7). Wilson has been encouraging CSS designers and developers to repair any bug-specific hacks ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | December 22nd, 2005

Pandora’s Box (Model) of CSS Hacks And Other Good Intentions

This Thanksgiving I’ve decided it’s about time that I provided some more background and analysis on one of the things I am certainly unintentionally (in)famous for.

By Tantek Çelik | November 27th, 2005

The W3C Web API Working Group

W3C announces the Web API group to develop specifications that enable improved client-side application development on the Web.

By Jeremy Keith | November 23rd, 2005

WaSP Microsoft Task Force Update: Upcoming Products, XAML, Acid2, SXSW, and IE7 Revealed

The WaSP Microsoft Task Force held another face-to-face meeting with available members on Tuesday. We met in a Starbucks along the waterfront in rainy Seattle. While the setting might have been a bit predictable, the conversation was unique and at times, very encouraging. WaSPs at the meeting were DL Byron ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 2nd, 2005

Recent Buzz

Our Work Here is Done

By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.

When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.

Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.

Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:

• A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
• HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
• W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
• WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
• Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
• Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.

The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.

Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.

Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)

More Buzz articles

Title	Author
Call for action on Vendor Prefixes	Rachel Andrew
An End to Aging IE Installs	Aaron Gustafson
Beyond the Blue Beanie?	Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis
The Sherpas are Here	Aaron Gustafson