In one of the seemingly endless permathreads on www-style Boris Zbarsky points out the roadblocks with deploying a new feature on the interwebs. The big gating factors on speed of specification development:
- Lack of editor time to create the original text.
- Lack of implementor time to implement all the things that people care to think up all at once.
- Lack of people writing testcases for the test suite (CSS2.1 test suite coverage is … rather poor in many areas, even with the large numbers of tests that implementors and a few others have contributed).
In other words, an ongoing struggle for resources. The WHATWG has a companion specifications wiki page that lists specifications that need editing. Easiest place to start with any of the above, if you are interested in helping out, is the WHATWG IRC channel. This was a public service announcement, thanks for your time.
So if I volunteer for one of these tasks then I become eligible to participate in endless permathreads?
I think a few short but genuine success stories of volunteering might be better motivation.
Are there any positive stories?
What would you define as a success story? Most of the people now working on standards (Anne, Lachlan, Simon, Henri, Tab, myself, etc) started off as volunteers.
@Ian,
What does that imply? That if you are determined to work in standards you can find a way? That doing the job effectively requires you to go full-time?
When you were a volunteer:
Your hostility indicates that you're not actually interested in hearing answers, though.
Hi Tab Atkins,
I'm not being hostile. I am interested - that is why I am asking specific questions. It is surprising that the specification guys find that threatening.