INFO for HTML-wg

weibel@oclc.org
Mon, 10 Jul 95 15:15:37 EDT

The rash of How-do-I-do-it questions surfacing on the list
suggests that its time to post the Info page for HTML-WG once again.

Please DO NOT post your questions or casual suggestions about how HTML
does or should work. If you have any questions about the purpose of this
list or the scope of discussions, read the following carefully.

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IETF Working Group on HTML

I. About the HTML-WG
II. Archives and Related Information
III. HTML-WG Principals
IV. Guidelines for Proposing New Features
V. Other Sources of HTML Information
VI. How to UNSUBSCRIBE (and other useful commands)

I. About the HTML-WG

Welcome to the HTML-WG list. This list is maintained for the express
and limited purpose of supporting the activities of those actively
involved in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Working Group on
HTML specifications. All subscribers are welcome, but it is important
that discussion on this list be restricted to matters of immediate
importance in negotiating consensus concerning the specifications of
HTML in the IETF standards track. Please restrict postings here to
this purpose.

II. Archives and Related Information

HyperMail archive of the HTML-WG mail server, maintained by Ron Daniel:

http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML_WG/archives.html

Pointers concerning the IETF and HTML, maintained by Roy Fielding:

http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/html/
ftp://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/html/

The HTML working group charter is available from the IETF web server:

http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/html.charters/html-charter.html

W3 Consortium information on HTML:

http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/MarkUp.html

III. HTML-WG Principals

HTML Working Group Co-chair:

Tim Berners-Lee timbl@w3.org
Eric Sink esink@spyglass.com

Editor of the HTML 2.n Specification:

Dan Connolly connolly@w3.org

Editor of the 3.n Specification

Dave Raggett dsr@w3.org

IV. Proposing New Features

Those who would propose new features or modify old ones are urged to
discuss their ideas with experienced HTML implementors before going
public. In any case, the following issues should be addressed in any
proposal:

* a statement of the problem as you see it

* a proposed solution

* a demonstration that this solution is globally cost-effective
without being locally prohibitive (i.e. the sum of all the
effort of deploying this solution is less than the cost of
dealing with the problem with existing technology, and yet
no one party bears too much of the burden. For example, if
you require every information provider to do something, it
had better be minimal.)

* a discussion of graceful deployment and interoperability issues.

**** NOTE WELL ****

Your ideas will achieve greater credence if you take the time and
effort to disseminate proposals as an internet draft. Don't forget to
follow the internet draft guidelines:

Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts

ftp://ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/internet-drafts/1id-guidelines.txt

"We value your opinion, really we do,
but we're going to put a stiff tax on its expression,
so that we won't have to hear it very often."

-name withheld to protect the guilty ;-)

V. Other Sources of HTML Information

A number of other mailing lists and Usenet groups afford ample
opportunity for discussions of philosophy, proposed features, and
announcements of WWW systems and resources. Those interested in
general discussions of WWW issues may wish to join one of the general
Web discussions hosted elsewhere, including:

www-announce WWW announcements of general interest
www-talk Technical discussions of WWW issues
www-html Discussions of proposed future enhancements to HTML
web4lib Delivery of Library services via WWW

For details on these lists and how to access them, see:

http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Mailing/Mail/Lists.html

Usenet discussion of WWW issues:

comp.infosystems.www.advocacy
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.images
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x
comp.infosystems.www.servers.mac
comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc
comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows
comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix

VI. How to UNSUBSCRIBE (and other useful commands)

COMMANDS and REQUESTS. Send messages that contain commands to:

listproc@oclc.org

Place your commands in the body of the message--NOT in the subject line;
type each command on a separate line. Here are some common commands:

COMMAND RESPONSE FROM LISTPROC@OCLC.ORG
-------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
subscribe html-wg [your name] Confirmation that you have been
added as a subscriber to HTML-WG

signoff html-wg Confirmation that your subscription
has been stopped

info html-wg Information about HTML-WG

help Brief information about several
available commands

review html-wg Retrieve a list of subscribers to HTML-IG

index html-wg A list of available files; the list
includes file names and paths

get [path] [file name] Retrieve the specified file

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Please report any problems with the list to the list maintainer:

Stuart Weibel weibel@oclc.org