Browser makers are no longer the problem. The problem lies with designers and developers…

So if the W3C comes up with recommendations, and the WaSP targets people, who is left to push the browsers?

When XHTML 2.0 comes along, and us developers get to play with and universal hrefs, how long will we have to wait until browsers play along?

Maybe yet another organisation isn’t the answer, but there is a missing link–browsers are not being pressured enough. We shouldn’t have to decide which browser to use based on how well it renders websites! We should choose based on reliablity, speed, extras and mods.

But we know all that. How do we go from X to Y?

With clever people like you.

Mike: no, I don’t want to make the W3C a charitable organization. If I’d wanted that, I’d have said it. Think of it more like a private university in the U.S.; they have capital campaigns and live off the interest of their endowments (as well as tuition fees), but they are not charities, nor are they for-profit organizations.

Jono: I very much appreciate your vote of confidence in me and my colleagues, but honestly, it almost sounds like you’re describing the Web Standards Project. They don’t have funding, but lobbying browser makers has been a basic mission for them.

I don’t think I’d want to set up another consortium. I’d rather improve the W3C to the point that no replacement is needed.

So let’s take this a step further. We already have the core of new age web developers; Zeldman, Meyer, Clark, etc. What if a new consortium came along. A consortium that moves beyond lecturing and begins to seriously lobby browsers to accept and impliment W3C changes.

Acid2 has been around for how long? Why does only Safari support it?

You guys have done the web so much good. Perhaps just a little more before you all take that well deserved rest and hand things off to us, the next generation.

We need a W3C that is nimble, can get things done, and oh by the way, can GET THINGS DONE. For too long we have blamed Microsoft and others browser makers for our problems. If the technology moves forward, so will the browsers, so will the community. But it doesn’t, it really hasn’t, and that is maybe the most frustrating thing of all.

10+ years and we’re still dealing with differences in the platform, using archaic ways to layout and markup and all kinds of other annoying issues.

Give me an organization that can move us forward, and do it quicker than 10 years.

Note: I do not have access to the budget of the W3C, but with approximately 70 staff members at an average total cost of $125,000 per year in salary, benefits, and travel expenses, the staffing cost would be $8.75 million…You might wonder where the blinking font the W3C could get that kind of money, even over the course of a decade. Well, 20 Internet billionaires could each donate $10 million in thanks for the W3C making their fortunes possible, and there you go.

So you want to make the W3C into a charitable organization? Why not have the 70 staff members donate their time? Also, the W3C did not make the billionaires’ fortunes possible. It was the billionaires’ own work (be it coding or deal making or whatever) that made them into billionaires.

Although I do think independent funding could work out well for the W3C, I’m not sure it is one of the top priorities for reform in itself. It is possible that other beneficial org structure, process, and goal-setting reforms might only be achievable with a different funding model, but I don’t know enough about the W3C to say.

Do not forget that it is an organization which has changed a lot in the last 10 years and specifically in the last 4/5 years in terms of process.

Eric Meyer, in one of his latest posts in the W3C change series, proposes quite a radical change for the W3C:
full independence. The article is well worth a read, coming from one of the people with the most insight in to W3C operations, and I agree wi…

W3C is publishing (should publish) every 3 months a public version of the draft open to comments. In last call, not only comments from the WG, but also from the public has to be answered. There is also a notion which is very important: the W3C Patent Policy to guarantee Royalty Free Specifications. But there are interesting comments in your answers. Some myths about W3C? :) For example, decisions are made on the consensus. The CR phase of a specification is here to gather double implementations on each feature. The thing is that the W3C has evolved a lot in the last 5 years. Since the QA Activity has been created and we are still pushing for having better quality. It takes time to put process in places and changes the mentality of people participating to groups. :)

Do not forget there are humans participating in WG in the name of entities (companies, organizations, etc.)

Asbjorn, if you have time, I would be interested by a list of your beliefs about W3C to my personal address. Could you send me a mail with them? I think it would help to clarify things with a post on the QA Weblog for example.

We have also to not forget that W3C is getting money from different sources not only private companies. First Membership is also composed of Organizations and Governments. We get money from European Community and from USA government. There is also specific WAI sponsorship.

As to find the information, it was on the home page for months, and it has be announced on the home page. You said that spammers have been able to find it, so it seems it was not that obscure. ;)

As for link farm, I guess that spammers will unfortunately be disappointed, because bot instructions are used to request to not follow the links.

Your ideas are very interesting and will be certainly explored.