| HTML

HTML WG

NOTE: This working group is closed

Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 08:52:30 -0500
Message-Id: <2.2.32.19960912135230.00b6c3f8@spyglass.com>
To: html-wg@w3.org
From: "Eric W. Sink" 
Subject: This WG is now closed

See: W3C HTML Activity for HTML development status.

The HTML Working Group is chartered firstly to describe, and secondly to develop, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The group's work is to be based on existing practice on the Internet, and will make due reference to the SGML standard.

from the charter of the HTML WG
as of IETF 31, Dec 1994

If you are new to the IETF, you should probably do some background reading. I recommend:

• IETF Working Group Process
• Guidelines to Draft Authors
• The TAO of the IETF

IETF working groups exist for the sole purpose of drafting, revising,  and reviewing Internet Standards. They have a focused charter and milestones. In order to conduct the business of the working group effectively, discussion of items not on the charter is prohibited (this rule is enforced by the working group chair, and sometimes the members. You have been warned.) There are a number of other HTML and WWW discussion forums, such as mailing lists and USENET newsgroups, where discussions of philosophy, proposed features, and announcements of WWW systems and resources are welcome.

Mailing List

The business of the working group is conducted on a public mailing list, <html-wg@w3.org> (formerly html-wg@oclc.org).

Background and Archives

HTML working group charter

maintained by the IETF secretariate <ietf-web@cnri.reston.va.us>

Hypertext Archive of HTML-WG mailing list

formerly maintained by Ron Daniel

HTML-WG: Abstracts and Related Info

maintained by Roy Fielding

HTML Implementors Group mailing list archive

Archive of messages from June 14, 1994 to October 14, 1994, dealing with revisions to the HTML 2.0 specifications. (source)

Principals

HTML Working Group Chair

Eric Sink esink@spyglass.com

Editor of the HTML 2.n Specification:

Dan Connolly connolly@w3.org

Editor of the 3.n Specification(s)

Dave Raggett dsr@w3.org

Proposing New Features

Those who would propose new features or modify old ones are urged to discuss their ideas with experienced HTML implementors before going public. In any case, the following issues should be addressed in any proposal:

• a statement of the problem as you see it
• a proposed solution
• a demonstration that this solution is globally cost-effective without being locally prohibitive (i.e. the sum of all the effort of deploying this solution is less than the cost of dealing with the problem with existing technology, and yet no one party bears too much of the burden. For example, if you require every information provider to do something, it had better be minimal.)
• a discussion of graceful deployment and interoperability issues.

**** NOTE WELL ****

Your ideas will achieve greater credence if you take the time and effort to disseminate proposals as an internet draft. Don't forget to follow the internet draft guidelines: Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts

"We value your opinion, really we do, but we're going to put a stiff tax on its expression, so that we won't have to hear it very often."

-name withheld to protect the guilty ;-)