2 ms·

Does the W3C have any influence anymore? I thought it lost some of it's influence, but can't recall why.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
The W3C took a hit to it's influence in the early 2000s after their introduction of RDF (Resource Description Framework), the technology behind Linked Data and XHTML. Whilst technically superior and philosophically more elegant than the raw HTML they sought to enhance (note that HTML5 hadn't been invented at this point), it was not immediately very popular - the concept of Linked Data was somewhat harder to understand than the concept of markup, and getting it wrong would mean your website might fail to display. This lead to the creation of WHATWG, which holds sway over HTML5 and some miscellaneous JavaScript browser APIs, but still a very limited set of Web features compared to the W3C, which standardises lots of areas including CSS. I would say that it was a pretty minor loss of influence overall, and their Linked Data is now used in almost all websites in at least a basic metadata capacity, which is how those 'social links' work (where you paste a URL in a chatroom or social network and find the title, logo and header picture appear automatically) for instance. More extensive use of Linked Data is often not directly visible to website visitors, but will soon form the foundation of a number of digital identity card systems, even for entire countries, and will do so in a way which has the potential to be significantly more privacy-friendly than a traditional 'citizen number' approach. I'm currently a participant in the Linked Data area of W3C's work, but I wasn't around during the events I describe above. Resilient Web Design[1], a short but excellent ebook by Jeremy Keith is a good read for understanding why RDF didn't catch on initially, and anything by Manu Sporny will be worth reading/watching for getting a positive description of how useful RDF and Linked Data can be (his introduction video to the topic, for instance[2]). [1]: https://resilientwebdesign.com/introduction/ https://resilientwebdesign.com/introduction/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_xzT5eF5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_xzT5eF5Q

The W3C took a hit to it's influence in the early 2000s after their introduction of RDF (Resource Description Framework), the technology behind Linked Data and XHTML. Whilst technically superior and philosophically more elegant than the raw HTML they sought to enhance (note that HTML5 hadn't been invented at this point), it was not immediately very popular - the concept of Linked Data was somewhat harder to understand than the concept of markup, and getting it wrong would mean your website might fail to display. This lead to the creation of WHATWG, which holds sway over HTML5 and some miscellaneous JavaScript browser APIs, but still a very limited set of Web features compared to the W3C, which standardises lots of areas including CSS. I would say that it was a pretty minor loss of influence overall, and their Linked Data is now used in almost all websites in at least a basic metadata capacity, which is how those 'social links' work (where you paste a URL in a chatroom or social network and find the title, logo and header picture appear automatically) for instance. More extensive use of Linked Data is often not directly visible to website visitors, but will soon form the foundation of a number of digital identity card systems, even for entire countries, and will do so in a way which has the potential to be significantly more privacy-friendly than a traditional 'citizen number' approach. I'm currently a participant in the Linked Data area of W3C's work, but I wasn't around during the events I describe above. Resilient Web Design[1], a short but excellent ebook by Jeremy Keith is a good read for understanding why RDF didn't catch on initially, and anything by Manu Sporny will be worth reading/watching for getting a positive description of how useful RDF and Linked Data can be (his introduction video to the topic, for instance[2]). [1]: https://resilientwebdesign.com/introduction/ https://resilientwebdesign.com/introduction/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_xzT5eF5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_xzT5eF5Q