W3C

Finding Your Way at W3C

This page has been designed to assist first-time visitors to the W3C Web site, those seeking introductory materials and tutorials on W3C work, and those seeking the proper forum for asking questions and finding contact information.

What is the W3C?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) both develops and promotes standard technologies for the Web. On the W3C Web site, you will find information about Web technologies such as the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) (see the full list of W3C Activities), W3C's mission, and how W3C operates.

Who is W3C?

W3C is an international consortium with over 500 Members and a full-time staff of more than 60 people; information about joining W3C is available on the Web site. Members send engineers to work in W3C Working Groups, led by W3C staff (called the "Team"), to produce technical specifications for Web technologies. W3C is led by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web. You can listen to a multimedia introduction to W3C by Tim Berners-Lee (in English, with English and Japanese subtitles; SMIL 2.0 player required).

W3C makes a strong commitment to interaction and accountability with the public. This is built into the W3C Process, which includes the rules by which W3C puts its stamp of approval on completed work. W3C invites the Web community to participate in W3C on public mailing lists, to interact with W3C Team at upcoming W3C appearances and events, and to attend (annually) the W3C track at the World Wide Web Conference.

How is the Web site organized?

Our Web site is organized along 3 main axes:

  1. W3C is divided into Activities. Each technology belongs to an Activity, and each Activity has a home page with links to related specifications, tutorials, and news.
  2. The core work of W3C appears in the index of specifications called technical reports which are at various levels of development. These documents define how a technology has to be used and implemented. (Note that this index is very technical.)
  3. Our mailing lists are where users and technology developers and implementors meet to discuss their ideas and exchange points of view. Mailing lists can be a place to look for technical help.

W3C conducts most of its work on its Web site. W3C maintains about 400,000 Web pages in the www.w3.org domain plus another 440,000 pages of mailing list archives at lists.w3.org (where the W3C mailing lists are housed). Producing a lot of interesting resources has two consequences:

  1. If you know where to search, you can find exactly what you're looking for.
  2. You really need to know where to search!

In addition, each page on our site has two important features:

  1. The W3C logo on most pages is a link to our home page.
  2. Most pages are signed with an email address, the way to send feedback to the author of the page.

Where do I find what I need?

If you think your question must already have an answer on our Web site, check the W3C Frequently Asked Questions list, the Site Index, and our search engine. Each is linked from the home page.

If you have a question and feel that you want to ask a person, use our mailing lists. Subscription information is in W3C Mailing List Administrativia. But how does one choose the right mailing list?

How do I use the home page?

Our home page is useful for people who visit the site regularly and can be a little hard to use for newcomers. It has four parts:

  1. At the top and bottom are navigation bars with links to our Activities, the index of Technical Reports, our Site Index, About W3C and ways to Contact Us.
  2. On the left side are shortcuts to some of the technologies developped on our site.
  3. In the center column are the latest news and announcements of the W3C.
  4. On the right side are links to operational resources. See especially how to participate as an individual.

If you are an individual from a Member organization, visit the Member home page and read the New Member Orientation. (Please apply for a password if necessary.) Mail you your lost password.

If you think that a link is missing from this page or from the home page, or if you know other ways to navigate our Web site, you can share that with us by sending an email to web-human@w3.org.

This page has been created without any use of a layout table.

Webmaster, last modified at $Date: 2002/03/27 17:20:48 $