Editing World Wide Web (section)

== Standards ==
{{Main|Web standards}}
Web standards include many interdependent standards and specifications, some of which govern aspects of the [[Internet]], not just the World Wide Web. Even when not web-focused, such standards directly or indirectly affect the development and administration of websites and [[web service]]s. Considerations include the [[interoperability]], [[accessibility]] and [[usability]] of web pages and web sites.

Web standards, in the broader sense, consist of the following:
* ''Recommendations'' published by the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.w3.org/TR/#Recommendations | title=W3C Technical Reports and Publications | publisher=W3C | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-date=15 July 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715045533/http://www.w3.org/TR/#Recommendations | url-status=live }}</ref>
* "Living Standard" made by the [[Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group]] (WHATWG)
* ''[[Request for Comments]]'' (RFC) documents published by the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html | title=IETF RFC page | publisher=IETF | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202124230/http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html | archive-date=2 February 2009 | url-status=dead }}</ref>
* ''Standards'' published by the [[International Organization for Standardization]] (ISO)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=world+wide+web&published=on&active_tab=standards | title=Search for World Wide Web in ISO standards | publisher=ISO | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-date=4 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304072654/http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=world+wide+web&published=on&active_tab=standards | url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''Standards'' published by [[Ecma International]] (formerly ECMA)<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/index.html | title=Ecma formal publications | publisher=Ecma | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-date=27 December 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227133707/http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''The [[Unicode]] Standard'' and various ''Unicode Technical Reports'' (UTRs) published by the [[Unicode Consortium]]<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.unicode.org/reports/index.html | title=Unicode Technical Reports | publisher=Unicode Consortium | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-date=2 January 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220102053035/https://www.unicode.org/reports/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref>
* Name and number registries maintained by the [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority]] (IANA)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.iana.org/ | title=IANA home page | publisher=IANA | access-date=19 January 2009 | archive-date=24 February 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224160727/http://www.iana.org/ | url-status=live }}</ref>

Web standards are not fixed sets of rules but are constantly evolving sets of finalized technical specifications of web technologies.<ref>{{cite book | first= Leslie | last= Sikos | title= Web standards – Mastering HTML5, CSS3, and XML | publisher= [[Apress]] | year= 2011 | isbn= 978-1-4302-4041-9 | url= http://www.masteringhtml5css3.com/ | access-date= 12 March 2019 | archive-date= 2 April 2015 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150402152305/http://www.masteringhtml5css3.com/ | url-status= dead }}</ref> Web standards are developed by [[standards organization]]s—groups of interested and often competing parties chartered with the task of standardization—not technologies developed and declared to be a standard by a single individual or company. It is crucial to distinguish those specifications that are under development from the ones that already reached the final development status (in the case of [[W3C]] specifications, the highest maturity level).