Wikimedia Foundation Joins the World Wide Web Consortium

Gilles Dubuc, writing for the Wikimedia Foundation: We're excited to announce that we've become a member of the W3C, the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded by Tim Berners-Lee in 1994, W3C works with hundreds of organizations to ensure that the web's basic building blocks -- like HTML or CSS -- remain consistent across browsers, platforms, and more. You can learn more about what W3C does over on Wikipedia. Joining the W3C fits right into our 2030 strategy, which calls on the Wikimedia movement to "become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and [ensure that] anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us."

The underlying technologies and standards of the web are a core part of the infrastructure that can facilitate knowledge equity, and so to achieve our vision, we need to participate and collaborate in designing the future of the web. As part of working groups, we will be collaborating directly with other major stakeholders on the web. Through attending meetings, providing feedback, helping with the drafting of standards, and performing some of the technical work necessary to put standards together (as well as participating in the decision-making process of their design), we're going to contribute to shaping a future of the web that helps everyone create and share free knowledge.

Wikimedia foundation joins pro-DRM group

[themusicgod1]

The EFF left the W3C for good reason. Why is Wikipedia not following their lead?

Maybe banning tor users from participating is causing them to lose this part of the big picture.

Re:

[themusicgod1]

This is just a rephrasing of "what, you mean there's going to be a wiki that any old joe on the internet can edit? Interesting concept but there's no way in hell that it'll ever get to be as good as the Encyclopedia Britannica" type comments we saw on Kuro5hin/slashdot when it was originally suggested.
In fact, people *can ad do* add valid enough content to create encyclopedic knowledge on the internet, whether or not they are people who take their privacy seriously - thanks for coming out

Re: Wikimedia foundation joins pro-DRM group

[phantomfive]

The only ones who really matter in the web consortium are the browser makers. They are like the UN security council: yeah, there are other countries in the UN, but they don't really matter.

Re:

[tepples]

The only ones who really matter in the web consortium are the browser makers.

Such as a browser maker allied with Wikimedia: Mozilla.

(Source: "Wikimedia Foundation collaborates with two initiatives: Mozilla’s OSSN and TeachingOpenSource’s POSSE" [wikimediafoundation.org].)

Good for both parties

[koavf]

Both entities will be able to better complete their visions by working together. We sometimes forget just how precious something like a standards-based Web and free knowledge are. I've supported the WMF and W3C for almost 20 years and I always will. This is great news.

Re:

[Locke2005]

You misspelled "raper"...

Wikimedia is not a good organization

[xack]

They basically enabled fake news to flourish by letting alternative voices get deleted as "undue weight" or "not notable". Back up your favorite articles on W3c.org, because the deletionists will be coming.

Re: Wikimedia is not a good organization

[Anonymous Coward]

Try having a wiki with actual facts, watch how the search engines bury you for "copying" from Wikipedia, even if your content is completely original.

Fantastic!

[phenylphenol]

Seems like an excellent development to me. Wikimedia has done remarkable things, and Wikipedia has probably done the most to protect both expression and authoratitivity on the open web. Bravi.

Cap in hands

[null etc.]

Great, maybe they can turn their desperate pleas for money into an official W3C standard.