jQuery Standards Group

The jQuery Standards Group exists to give web developers a voice in the standards process.

It has three primary goals:

• Represent the web developer community, and especially jQuery users, to the standards bodies (W3C and TC39) with the intention of improving existing standards and standards in progress to better meet the needs of web developers.
• Represent the web developer community, and especially jQuery users, to browser vendors with the intent of helping them identify standards that they should prioritize for implementing, and proofs of concept that they can build.
• Help the jQuery project adopt new standards and browser features as appropriate.

Helping

The easiest way to help is to report (or comment on) issues to the issue tracker in this repository.

Issues should:

• Identify problems with existing specs or specs in progress
• Identify problems with existing implementations of standards

A good example of a well-specified issue is JSFoundation#1.

Feel free to comment on existing issues rather than opening a totally new one. We will roll up important comments into the body of the issue periodically to ensure that the issues are as clear as possible.

Our goal is to collect well-specified and articulate issues with the web ecosystem as it exists today and advocate for improvements with the standards bodies or vendors.

In general, the purpose of this project is to help shed light on what the web community can collectively do to make the web a better place more rapidly.

Triage Process

If a new issue reflects the same concern as an existing issue, we will incorporate any new information into the existing issue and close it as a duplicate.

If it is a genuinely new issue, we will format and edit it, and assign it one of several tags:

• standards-body and
  • one of W3C or TC39
  • if applicable, a specific working group
• browser-vendor and
  • one of firefox, chrome, safari, android, webkit, etc.
  • this list will firm up over time

If applicable, we will also file tickets with the appropriate standards group or browser vendor and link the issue to the remote ticket.

If it is outside the scope of the Standards Group, we will close it as out-of-scope.

FAQ

Why not just open tickets with the standards bodies and browser vendors?

We think that having a single place to aggregate issues with the web platform as it exists today, and having a group dedicated to following up and tracking those issues will be extremely useful to the web community.

Once we triage an issue here, we will make sure that a ticket is opened in the appropriate tracker and followed up upon periodically. This will free web developers to report their problems, and if desired, let us manage the rest.

What and Who is the jQuery Standards Group?

The jQuery Standards Group is a subteam of the jQuery project, led by Yehuda Katz. Paul Irish, another member of the jQuery Board, is also part of the Standards Group.

We will have regular public meetings in #jquery-meeting on freenode (specific dates to be announced soon) to discuss ways that we can be most effective in promoting the needs of the web developer community.

We are looking for people interested in actively contributing. If you're interested, please sign up for our Google Group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jquery-standards.

Why does the web developer community need a forum like this?

Browser implementors, as part of their job, communicate with each other directly about potential new standards and features. This makes their discussion on the mailing lists and throughout the process more coherent and reflective of their shared values.

The purpose of the jQuery Standards Group is to create a forum where the web developer community can come together to discuss shared concerns and values.

Like implementors, this doesn't mean that we'll always agree on the obvious best course of action, but it does mean that we'll have a place to find areas of consensus and discuss how we would like to see the process move forward.

Browser standards bodies have two main constituencies: browser implementors and web developers.

Browser implementors are well-represented because as dues-paying members who also hold the keys to the implementation castle, they command the lion's share of attention.

By creating this forum, we hope that we give voice to the millions of web developers deeply invested in the process but without a natural way to aggregate their concerns.