On joining the HTML editors team

I am honoured and excited to say I am now a member of the W3C HTML editors team. Joining Robin, Erika, Silvia, Ted and Travis to work on continuing the development of HTML.

What does this mean?

In practical terms it means I have write access to the HTML specification on Github. This does not mean I, or any of the editors, can change HTML at will. It does mean I have a little more opportunity to effect change upon the development of the HTML language in accordance with the agreed upon processes of the HTML Working Group. It primarily means a bucketload of work in the form of responding to and resolving bugs.

Recent discussions and changes:

• Discussion which lead to a minor change in the information in the HTML spec about using the figure element.
• Discussion which lead to some minor changes in the information in the HTML spec about using main element.
• Resolved a bug which resulted in the addition of a section about Captcha Images to HTML 5.1

Note: all of the above changes are preliminary changes to the HTML 5.1 editor’s draft and subject to change based on feedback and future decisions of the HTML working group.

Working together

The development of the HTML standard is a collaborative effort and it is important that the voices of users and developers, as well as implementers, are heard and taken into account.

You can provide input in a number of ways:

• Join the HTML Working Group
• Comment via the HTML Public comments list
• File a bug on the HTML spec (requires registering for a bugzilla account – its simple!)
• Dropping into #HTML-WG IRC and chatting, it’s logged.

I  also follow discussions on blogs such as HTML5Doctor.com and bring up HTML related discussions to the working group’s attention.

You can keep up with changes to the spec on twitter via @HTML_commits. You can also ping me on twitter : @stevefaulkner