Monday 14 August 2006

Angry, Not: Zeldman, Meyer, and Fair Concerns About the W3C

Eric Meyer has written a great post, Angry Indeed and it’s one that’s going to be read and linked to.

A lot.

I agree with many of Eric’s perspectives on this issue and therein lies the great irony of the entire conversation as to the relevance and strength of the W3C.

I do want to clarify something right away: It’s not WaSP that believes the W3C is interested in changing course, but that I believe it. All BUZZ posts are the opinions of their opinionated authors, as it clearly states on every page of the WaSP web site.

Still, to keep a separation of church and state, as it were, I am posting this response here on my own web site.

Now, as for my rebuttal to Jeffrey Zeldman, I discussed this at length with industry leaders who are or have been involved with the W3C such as Tantek, Hixie and Kevin among others, including Eric.

One thing everyone agrees on, including me, is that the W3C is becoming very limited in terms of real-world contributions and other groups such as WHAT-WG and microformats.org are truly advancing the web, not the W3C.

I’m biased, admittedly and unabashedly. I came to the W3C far later in the game than many of my colleagues. Why that is, we can save for another discussion on a different day. But the fact I’ve only had a year and a half in, and my experience has been almost wholly positive, well naturally I’m going to have a hopeful perspective.

That I came in via Richard Ishida and the i18n pathway was especially fortunate, for that group is doing really good work in all ways, including outreach. I have done precious little in the HTML working group, which I joined because Steven Pemberton asked me. My hope was to do some outreach there too, but I’m very limited – just as most of us are – in my care for XHTML 2.0.

All I really, really want from XHTML 2.0 is href to be available for any element. That gets me hot. Other than that, what am I supposed to outreach? That I think Web Applications 1.0 (also referred to as HTML 5) makes more sense? Because in many ways, I do.

Eric points to the seeming dichotomy of my arguments, and he’s absolutely correct. He knows me very well and if anyone can point out flaws in me, I’m going to have to let Mr. Meyer have his way.

But, I’m torn! I’m at the W3C now. And I see some good things. And I especially see some amazing people. As a person who is a social connector, problem solver and ultimately, an optimist, my hopes prevail.

Does it make a difference that this conversation is being followed carefully by the W3C? That the W3C wants desperately to solve its problems? That maybe instead of us abandoning the great mindshare we have there that there’s an opportunity for restructuring, refocus, and hey, let’s face it, better communications for all?

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Posted by:   Molly | 07:39 | Comments (66)