This charter is written in accordance with section 3.2.2 of the W3C Process.
The web characterisation working group in the HTTP-NG project had as its
purpouse to provide characterisation information for HTTP-NG, and to understand
how to deal with this topic in the future. During this time, the activity
had merely a few sources, and a few well-defined consumers (i.e. the HTTP-NG
protocol design group).
In November 1998, a
workshop
was held in Boston, MA to gather interested parties and initiate the Activity.
As a result, a working group and an interest group was formed in the W3C to create a system for the gathering of material and the dissemination of the results. The goal of the working group was to automate the analysis, and through the analysis the maintenance, of the web. The goal of the interest group was to be a public discussion forum for bulk data providers and reduced data consumers, and to provide requests and feedback to the Working Group. It is expected that the tools and dissemination mechanism produced by the Working Group will benefit from a feedback mechanism with its immediate users, as well as their continuous review.
Furthermore, the intent of the IG was to establish connections to the Web Community as well as the Internet Community and to provide recommendations and guide lines for Web specifications and implementations.
The continued work of the Web Characterisation Interest Group has two missions:
The W3C process defines the general scope of an interest group as follows:
"An Interest Group brings together people who wish to evaluate potential Web technologies and policies. An Interest Group does not have the goals of a Working Group -- development of specifications or code. Instead, it serves as a forum to explore cooperation and exchange ideas.It is quite possible that an Interest Group's studies will lead to the creation of a Working Group, but this may not be known in advance nor is it guaranteed."
This Interest Group will serve as a discussion forum for individuals and organizations who want to discuss research methods for web characterisation, the heigth and width of the web, and generally continue the discussions of the Web Characterisation Interest Group. The group will maintain an open discussion mailing list.
The interest group will also maintain the repository constructed by the Web Characterisation Activity on a volonteer basis. The repository will serve as the focus for the discussion on continued research in web characterisation.
This Interest Group is scheduled for one year, from January 2000 to January 2001.
The Interest Group has fulfilled its mission if it succeeds in assembling and maintaining an ongoing discussion about web characterisation.
Milestones are only set for the first months of this Interest Group. Additional milestones may be added when the group decides to take on additional work items.
To facilitate cooperation with the research community, this charter and the archives of the Group's mailing list (www-wca@w3.org) will be open to the public.
The WCA IG will advise other W3C working groups about the status of the web and deployment issues, as well as serve as a focal point for discussions.
The participants of the Web Characterisation
IG communicate via a public, archived
mailing list, www-wca@w3.org
(archive).
Official membership in the IG is open to all employees of W3C member organizations. There are no minimum requirements, neither in terms of expertise, not in terms of time dedicated to the group. If the IG decides to prepare a document, the editor(s) will be asked to commit to a certain percentage of their time.
Employees of organisations that are currently not W3C members can participate
in the discussions on the IG's mailing list
www-wca@w3.org
(archive).
The IG will be chaired by Jim Pitkow of Xerox Parc. Johan Hjelm (visiting engineer from Ericsson) will be the W3C staff contact. The maintenance of the repository will not require any W3C resources.