Comments on: Cleveland Web Standards Association

By: Greg Mayer

Greg Mayer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:59:51 +0000

I realize the web site is a work in progress, but a contact page would be a nice touch. Otherwise, I have to ~~complain~~ comment here about the lack of print css.

By: Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:00:34 +0000

I had the pleasure of joining these guys for the first time last week. What an experience. I cannot wait to be more involved in the future.

By: G. Jason Head

G. Jason Head — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:33:52 +0000

Doh! This is tonight. I have been hoping to drive up to one of these events from Pittsburgh one of these days. Hopefully there may be a weekend event in the future, or something that I can try to take a day off to make it up to.

I run the local Refresh Pittsburgh group, and have been wanting to start some dialogs with some of the other groups in other towns, and Cleveland is on my list!

By: David Mead

David Mead — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:50:32 +0000

@Jonathon, We started to get RefreshCleveland back up and running around the same time that Joe & the guys were breathing life back into the CWSA (via meetup.com), so we made the decision to keep Refresh more online for the time being. @Bridget, thx @Eric, CO2 cannisters @ dawn it is Sir :-)

By: Joseph James Frantz

Joseph James Frantz — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:58:26 +0000

@Eric, Thanks for the post G. Much appreciated. Of course all the congrats go out to the team that worked on this for us.

@Everyone else, I’m not sure about the setup of a lot of the organizations like ours. We’ve begun billing ourselves as Professionals with Personality though, because we’d like to really maintain the social aspects of our group, as well as the professional. The next gathering will likely have several announcements in this direction. So stay tuned:).

By: Bridget Stewart

Bridget Stewart — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:55:48 +0000

@Eric thanks for the mention on the CWSA!

@Snook, as mentioned the main Refresh dude is a member of the CWSA, so I believe the relationship is mutually beneficial. Plus, David Mead is one hell of a guy.

@Arjan we plan to rule the world someday, but we had to take baby steps, first. ;)

The group started out as a social thing, but morphed into a group of people who wish to network, instruct & learn, as well as spread the word about the beauty of standards. We’re currently in the process of figuring out the best way for us to do that, given our current resources.

By: Arjan

Arjan — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:57:12 +0000

The meetings seem to be familiar compared with the meetings we organize here in The Netherlands with Fronteers. Do you only organize meetings? Or do you have further plans to spread the word about web standards?

By: Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:34:28 +0000

I haven’t had the pleasure of joining you guys yet, but since I live 3 miles from campus, I’ll be there.

Eric, be prepared. I’ve been trying to contact you and take you out for a huge steak for about a year now… I might just have to try harder next week :)

By: Eric Meyer

Eric Meyer — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:28:24 +0000

Water balloon fight? Hell no. We”re goin” for paintball!

By: Brendan Cullen

Brendan Cullen — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:27:10 +0000

@Jonathan
As Brad already mentioned, we’re all super happy fun pals with the same goal in mind: promoting modern web development in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Anything Refresh Cleveland does indirectly (or even directly) promotes our goals, and vice versa. But maybe when the weather warms up here we can have a water balloon fight or something to determine who gets to be Captain.

By: Nate Klaiber

Nate Klaiber — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:47:45 +0000

@Andy
The current site is completely static – it is another step in our building process. Next up will be a custom backend to manage everything we need to manage. Once this is in place, we will implement hAtom (and use it to render our atom feeds).

Thanks for the heads up on the other microformats as well.

By: Brad Dielman

Brad Dielman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:02:04 +0000

@Andy
Good call on the lack of hCard for the organization and venue. We’ll get that corrected soon.

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:28:57 +0000

Nice, but I wouldn’t call it “chock full” of microformats (on the home page, at least) what about hCard for the organisation, and the event’s venue? What about hAtom for the new items?

By: Brad Dielman

Brad Dielman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:38:26 +0000

@Jonathan
I’m not sure what David Mead has in store for Refresh Cleveland. He’s been doing a great job at spreading the word of web standards on the site though.

As for the CWSA, there was a real need for something like this in Cleveland. When we started the meetup, none of us really had any idea that it would grow into what it is today. With each meeting we realized that we could do a lot of good in the area if we took the initiative and organized ourselves into something more than just a simple meetup.

As for co-existing, I don’t think that will pose a problem. David is also a member of the CWSA so I’m sure whatever he organizes will be complimentary to what we are doing. :)

By: Jonathan Snook

Jonathan Snook — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:31:59 +0000

Like trovster, this seems very similar to the idea behind a Refresh. How do you see the two groups co-existing?

My initial thought is that it would mean that people would have to ultimately choose which to attend because of the time commitment. For example, if you only go out once a month, having two events a month (1 for CWSA, 1 for Refresh) means a person has to decide which to go to.

I’m probably just not seeing the bigger picture here. :) (not that it matters, I’m not in Cleveland, just curious)