[thelist] Re: the many messages about standards and access to W3C

[CodeBitch]

Dear all,

Sorry to rake over the coals at such a late stage -- hopefully my tip is
sufficient explanation.

* $US5000 is a lot for many people, but there may be an issue of how else
the W3C raises funds, or how much it costs the W3C secretariat to service
that membership.  I'm no expert on how the W3C runs or what services it
provides to members, but I've seen other organisations in other fields
struggle because they had low membership fees to be inclusive, and then
couldn't fund newsletters and other services that made the members feel
their membership was worthwhile.

* There is another way of getting on W3C committees than paying dues.
Looking at the membership list, I note that Case Western Reserve University
is not a member of W3C. CWRU is the employer of CSS expert Eric Meyer (or
was until recently, I'm not in a position to know), who was on the working
group as an invited expert. The same goes for Todd Fahrner.
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/about.html

So if you carve out enough of a reputation as an expert, you can get on one
of these working groups without paying $US5000 or working for an
organisation that did.

Kind regards,
CodeBitch


<tip type="localisation" author="CodeBitch" timezone="AEDST">
Localisation is a difficult thing to get right on websites. If language and
cultural references aren't hard enough, there's also the issue of timezone.
For example, even if your server is located in Australia, your main audience
might be in the US. This could be a problem if your hosting service
schedules downtime for 2AM Sydney time, which is roughly when the US is
starting work for the previous day. The datestamps you put on news stories
and discussion forum posts can also be confusing to your readers -- consider
adding a timezone qualifier like GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) or AEDST
(Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time).  Similarly, if a raging debate
occurs on a mailing list, don't be too surprised if some members don't chime
in even if you know the topic interests them. They might live on the other
side of the world and have been asleep when it was happening.
</tip>