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+<p>Many prominent web designers are beginning to think that the internet's most venerable standards body might be hurting the web more than it's helping.</p>
+
+<p>Long the gold standard of approval, in the past few years the <a href="http://www.w3.org/">World Wide Web Consortium</a> (W3C) has produced little in the way of tangible advances and some who look the W3C as a steward of the web are beginning to lose faith.</p>
+
+<p>Speeding things, they argue, just might require some as-yet unsanctioned tools.</p>
+
+<p>More importantly it might require designers to stop imposing limitations on themselves. Jeff Croft, an HTML designer at Blue Flavor and longtime standards supporter, nevertheless <a href="http://www2.jeffcroft.com/blog/2007/dec/16/do-we-need-return-browser-wars/">believes</a>, "we've completely lost the innovative, experimental, lets-try-something-crazy attitude of web designers in the 90s, because we're too damn concerned about making things that are compliant." </p>
+
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+This is a hella hard nut to write. i know it needs to get tighter, but I can't figure out what to cut.
+
+<p>Without the W3C the open web we know would not exist. In the mid 1990s Microsoft and Netscape continually one-upped each other with new unique features in their respective browsers. Developers often had to make a choice, a website either worked in Internet Explorer or Netscape, seldom both. The W3C was formed to eliminate the friction of the early web and paved the way for today's open, standardized web.</p>
+
+<p>But what started a a set of guidelines have quickly turned to dogma at the expense of innovation critics argue.</p>
+
+-----------
+
+<p>One of the more outspoken critics, Alex Russell, creator of the Dojo Ajax toolkit, thinks that it's time to abandon the W3C as a source of web guidance. "Web developers in the 90's were looking forward, not backward, writes Russell on <a href="http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=642">his blog</a>, "I remember being excited about getting the chance to use new features and not caring who gave them to us."</p>
+
+<p>Both Croft and Russell feel that, while the existing standards are good, they should not serve as a limitation. As Russell says, "developers put their faith in the W3C to the extent that the introduction of new things by browser vendors without standards-body blessing causes gnashing of teeth."</p>
+
+<p>Yet, according to Dan Conley, co-chair of the HTML working group and longtime member of the W3C's Technical Staff, many elements of the HTML 5 specification now being created "come from alpha implementations in a browser." And that's a good thing argues Croft who thinks that, "one way to encourage [browser vendors] is to actually <em>use</em> said features."</p>
+
+<p>Janet Daly, Global Communications Officer at the W3C, is quick to point out that there's nothing stopping developers, "the web's greatest gift is that everybody gets to call it their own."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed many of the tools that have produced innovative new technologies on the web have come from sources outside the W3C. XMLHttpRequest, the backbone of Ajax technologies, was originally developed by Microsoft for Internet Explorer and later implemented by other browsers. XMLHttpRequest was then taken up by the W3C and is now overseen by the Web API working group.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately not every vendor advance works out as well as XMLHttpRequest and supporters of W3C and strict adherence to web standards argue that running out ahead of could set back the web as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>Chris Messina, who's worked with Mozilla and others, fears that using browser-unique features and other proprietary technologies will lead to a "privileged web" leveraging the latest and greatest for only a few and an "unprivileged web" that relies on tried and true open tools.</p>
+
+<p>Even those critical of the W3C don't want to see a return to the painful world of 1995 with sites that only work in one browser. </p>
+
+<p>One of the problems and a main source of the W3C's slow pace is that, as Conley says, "it's a larger ball game, the scale of everything has gone up." Unlike the web of 1995 when the W3C was born, billions of dollars change hands through web technologies. "This isn't just 20 geeks hammering out a code in the corner anymore," says Conley.</p>
+
+<p>Messina argues that in many way that's exactly the problem. "Enterprises, like the government, have an incentive to avoid change and evolution."</p>
+
+<p>Messina thinks its time for another approach and points to "community convention" projects like Microformats, <a href="http://openid.net/">OpenID</a> and <a href="http://oauth.net/">OAuth</a>, which have all evolved quickly and dynamically without the blessing of the W3C. "These projects to me represent the way the web needs to evolve," says Messina. </p>
+
+<p>James Bennett, a web developer involved with the popular Django framework, has a thoughtful response to the debate on <a href="http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2007/dec/17/standards/">his blog</a> in which he argues that the choices so far on the table &mdash; stay with web standards and learn to live with their development pace, or abandon them altogether in favor of the enthusiastic mob — are a false dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing we need to do," says Bennett, "is throw that out and recognize that there's actually a fairly broad continuum of options." Bennett believes balance is the key, "We should be looking for a balance between the input of people who use and develop for the Web, and people who develop browsers." </p>
+
+<p>Russell too believes that standards still have a roll. Browser makers should encourages to innovate he says, but they should also come "back to the bargaining table to standardize things." As Bennett and the others see it the ball is in the browser maker's court, they have a chance to reshape it, then the designers see how it plays and the W3C steps in last to make sure everyone gets to use the same ball.</p>