W3C HTML Mob Group

The HTML Working Group email list was finally sparked into life this week after the public invite process did the rounds on various blogs.

I felt this was something that I wanted to get involved in. For years - strike that forever - there has been much angst in the web developer world over the state of browsers, their shortcomings and the fact that none are the same. None of this is really the fault of the W3C, they set some of the early web standards that browser manufacturers chose to interpret, but that wasn’t the W3C’s fault.

But i still feel that in todays climate of standards compliance and somewhat browser harmony, being involved in a work group that will decide the standards that may shape web browsers for the next 5+ years, and that will probably be followed, if not directly participated in by the key major browser manufacturers, was key for me, both professionally and personally. So I signed up.

I was very impressed when I was accepted as an “invited expert” it felt like some sort of validation. Of course the 3rd email to the mailing list explained that there were 79 other people signed up and none of the big names were present yet. Considering the confusing sign up process and strange forms and linkage issues that the W3C site has, I’m amazed that 79 people got this far - it makes me wonder how many thousands just gave up. Perhaps it’s just part of the pre-screening, I think 79 could be chaos at first, until people start dropping off, if it was easy to sign up we’d be holding face-to-face meetings at Madison Square Gardens.

At the end of the day, I am very excited about the whole process. I’m hoping I can actually contribute in some way, I will be tracking everything said on the list and reading every piece of literature that is mentioned - and there is lots.