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
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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