As I mentioned at today's meeting, Gabe, Wendy and I would like to propose
a name change for this group to, "Web People." Here is some of the
background for this proposal:

The Web Standards group was initially formed to promote the use of web
standards in the University Community at a time when they were not yet
widely adopted. At the time, table-based layouts were widely used and CSS
implementations were ripe for improvement. Flash was a commonly used
solution and many websites were severely limited in their accessibility.

More recently we’ve seen more wide-spread adoption of standards as well as
the rise of other groups (both capital- and small “C” communities of
practice) focussing on different aspects of Web technology and
implementation. Thus the University now has a broader spectrum of resources
addressing different areas of Web technology and communications. However,
the Web Standards group still has a unique audience that does not
completely overlap with other groups like Code People, DevOps, Net People
or the Communicators Forum.

Therefore, we propose that Web Standards change our name to Web People
because the standards war has largely been won, but we still have an
audience of web people we think are served by the group.

There is a web-people listserv on campus and Gabe sent a message to that
group explaining our proposal and rationale. (Some of this message borrows
(steals) from Gabe's message to that group.) The existing web-people list
has been inactive for some time. So far we have not heard any objections
from that list.

If there are no objections within either group, we'll likely start up a Web
People Google Group to supersede the existing web-people listserv and move
everyone on this list to the new group. Perhaps this fall. Certainly by
spring semester.

If there are objections, this list seems like the right place to discuss
them. If you'd rather express your concerns in private, feel free to
contact either me, Gabe or Wendy. We'll be happy to get together to talk
about them.

Thanks,

Tony

-- 
Tony Thomas
Web Developer
University of Minnesota
Student Unions & Activities
300 Washington Ave SE, Ste 500
Minneapolis MN 55455

Direct: 612-626-9820
Fax:     612-624-7256
sua.umn.edu <http://www.sua.umn.edu>