Thanks for you great work, everyone. The web is a much better place today thanks to WaSP.

It’s been a pleasure to be part of this team and this community. It’s proven the old adage, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It’s hard to overstate how valuable WaSP was to the web (and the digital world as a whole). Thank you for your constant and consistent vigilance and passion during the past decade-and-a-half.

I thing you’re completely right. Thank you for the great work you’ve done the last 15 years. The result is phenomenal.

“When we speak about “standards” for the Web, we mean: Structural Languages – XHTML1.0, XHTML1.1, XML1.0″

— WaSP, Feb 2006. “When we speak about “standards” for the Web, we mean: Structural Languages – HTML4.01, XHTML1.0, XML1.0″

— WaSP, Mar 2006. I must have missed the announcement. Oh, there wasn’t one.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!

Thank you for your great job. You made the web (browser) a better place.

I love you all. To the future! xoxo,

Molly

You’ve done a great job to making the web (the world) better, thanks.

I am Spartacus.

In all seriousness, it was my great pleasure to take part in founding this effort. The web is a better place because we who work the web know we have as much of a say as billion dollar companies about what the web platform is.

It’s been a great honor to be part of this team. It’s a great feeling to know that browser vendors, large companies and developers alike all recognize the necessity of standards. (Now if we could just get mobile on board. ;)) I’d like to encourage everyone to get involved in one of the great projects Aarron mentions above — or to start your own open source project that fills in some of the other gaps. Let’s keep moving the web onward and upward. Cheers!

Thanks for all you’ve done, and continue to do through the sites listed above. As a web dev student, your work is invaluable to me. With the plethora of new libraries and the blend of languages that come across Twitter daily, it’s a must to have some centrally organized standards effort. The college I attend is at the top of the heap in the world of web development programs, but they’re woefully out of date with their curriculum. This makes the work of web standards organizations that much more important.

Congrats and thank you for making my life easier.

I offer my deepest bow of respect. Thank you all.

Thanks, everyone. You made my life as a designer much easier. This project did it’s job well!

Good job people. We’ll take good care of it.

WaSP was an inspiration to countless designers and developers at the beginning of this century. I’d say your job is done, and was done well :)

Your group won’t be forgotten.

Thank you for everything

Thanks! I’m so glad to be building web sites the way things turned out, rather than the way things COULD have….

As someone who remembers how dire things were when you started, I offer you all a sincere thanks. You changed the world for the better.

Great work guys. Thanks for everything.

WaSP and W3C for the win! Thanks for helping keep “the rules” where they should be: in the hands and minds of the public. I’ve been creating web-based design for over 15 years, and I’ll say that today is the most exciting time in this profession/in my career. Thank you all for your thoughtful work and best of luck moving forward.

I remember the struggles — hard to believe how recent they were, and how long ago. Thanks for your work on all of our behalf.

Quiet heroes. Bravo.

There are things that have shifted the paradigm of the human race to a higher plane of existence. The discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the taming of electricity are a few of the things on the list. It is my belief that one day the internet will earn a place on that list too. Thank you for protecting it.

You guys. I would buy your entire team all of the drinks in the universe if I were able to do so. Thank you so much for the work you’ve done advancing our industry and making things awesome for the last decade and a half. Cheers to you. *raises glass*

Everyone who uses and designs for the web has been positively impacted by the incredibly hard work of WaSP. Thank you for all your pushing, cajoling, and advocating for a more open and accessible web.

Words could not describe what you have done for the www, the results of your work if seen by every internet user. Thank you

Thank you everyone for your work over the years. Thanks to you I now have rounded corners in all major browsers! It’s a beautiful day to be a web developer. Thanks again.

Thanks for your contributions to the open web – WaSP has been an incredible part of the history of the internet. It’s been a damned pleasure.

Bravo! Thank you!

You made a difference, a real, perceptible difference. You made an industry proud!

I remember when the WaSP project started, and I am smiling at the great contributions you have given the World. And that is not hyperbole.

Thank you, WaSP for your great work, which has led the Web to a better place, and enlightened W3C. I look forward to working with the community in its future incarnations. Ian

Sniff. Thanks so much for 15 years of amazing work.

Thanks for the hard work and for guiding all of us!

Thank-you, all. The Internet owes you a debt of gratitude, I’m sure.

Thank you all for your thoughtful work and all the besteht for the future.

Thanks for your hard work, WaSP. Without you I wouldn’t be doing what I love for a living today.

Thank you so much. Your work has inspired me and enabled my work in so many ways, and has been greatly appreciated by me and countless others.

Many, many thanks to all who contributed to the cause. And’s so good that you are able to declare that your “Work Here is Done!”

Thank you. You made a difference.

You have my gratitude and admiration for your amazing work. This news is bittersweet and my feelings are mixed. But you are right, it’s up to all of us now. To all those WASPers past and present, I salute you!

Nigh on 15 years ago, a guy named George Olsen sent an email to an Apple web authors mailing list asking if anyone was up for pressuring Netscape and Microsoft to play nice. I said I thought it was tilting at windmills, but I was willing to grab a lance. Best decision I ever made. Thanks, all. It’s been fantastic.

You changed web design theory and practice: just thank you all.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Umm… your work isn’t quite finished yet—Adobe Flash still exists and is making a mockery of the Web. While Flash is a completely different and proprietary technology with a different utility and purpose to the Web standards which Flash relies on for Web delivery, it is the only remaining reason why accessibility of content continues to be an enormous problem for users. The presence versus absence of Flash on a user’s preferred platform is what remains the sole contributor to problems relating to information access, excessive consumption of bandwidth and processing resources, and the security of both. The extraordinary work of the Web Standards Project is still under threat of being undermined thanks to the continued deployment of Adobe Flash Player as an inefficient mechanism for delivering information to users where the use of standards laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium could have been used instead. “The game’s not over.” –Khan.

This website is best viewed in any browser, at the screen resolution of your choice. Thanks.

Thanks for all the work you have done to keep the web free and open and standards compliant. But I must disagree with you that the fight is over and that the sites like this are not needed anymore. Increasingly old-fashioned corporations (like Microsoft and Apple) try to close down the web. Mostly by trying to sneak in all kinds of restrictions like HTML5 videos that are trapped in closed, non-free and patent-restricted video formats, instead of making it part of the standard to use only truly free and open formats like Off Theora or WebM. Then there are increasing pressure from those same companies to sneak in DRM (digital restrictions management) into web standards. And there are other tendencies like that which are increasing these days. So I think the fight is still on and free and open web still needs much defending and education of web developers which are unfortunately far from being aware of these threats to free and open internet. So yes, maybe your original goals don’t need to be worked on but there come new threats that still need much work.

Really, really glad you were here.

Tks.

How the hell did you get “WaSP” from “Web Standards Project?”

Surprising, but it’s time, I guess. Thanks for all your work. :)

Webstandards.org has a while to go if it is to convince Web developers to adopt the very HTML5 and CSS3 standards that they have been fighting for, which are currently being overshadowed by the use of Adobe Flash and other technologies as unnecessary and obstructive replacements. This is not a case of incompatible browsers anymore. This is a case of Web developers using the right tools for the job… a case of technology awareness. Adobe Flash is currently the leading cause of information inaccessibility, poor system utilisation, and at times, security, and most often, Flash is being used in places where HTML, CSS and JavaScript could be used for exactly the same tasks purposes with better results. “The game’s not over.” — Khan.

Thanks to all your hard work, terrible tech like ActiveX and AoL are relegated to obscurity where they belong. Although not perfect, the web is now virtually platform independent as it should be and our task lists as developers have been greatly reduced. GREAT JOB!

Parting is such sweet sorrow… Thanks so much for everyone’s contributions towards a better Web for all.

I’m saddened to see this project close and more-so because in your farewell above you fail to comment on your biggest contribution to stability of the web: ACID compliance testing for browsers. The backbone of any standard is compliance testing (e.g. see Postscript, OpenGL, etc etc.) and while the W3C has an admirable suite of data validators, it has never shown any interest in presentation-layer validation or compliance testing. Your ACID tests literally changed the world. Suddenly, browsers had an objective benchmark against which they could measure presentation-layer standards compliance. No one did that before WaSP and no one has done it since. Perhaps the best site to follow your lead is http://browserscope.org, however it simply packages the tests that you innovated. IMHO, your work is far from done. Who will lead presentation-layer compliance testing once you are gone?

Well done, all. So long, and thanks for all the rounded corners! :)

Thank you very much!

Well, I’d like to add a massive thank you to everyone who worked on and with and in the WaSP. The pressure developers to stick to the standard, and make everyone’s cake larger (rather than frying to get all of the cake — when it is needed is essential. Great to see such confidence that interop will be the name of the game in the medium future. Of course — there re other things to watch, including the power of massive governments, massive corporations, not to mention the “government-industrial complex”. So lets all keep an eye out for misbehavior, such as, blocking and spying on the net. There is much to keep track of, and I know that you all will be ready to come together in some form or other whenever the time calls for it. Thank you for starting WaSP and running it. The world is a better place as a result. timbl

Most of us wouldn’t know what to do today without your stellar efforts. Thanks!

Thanks. I owe all of you a lot!

Thank you, WaSP!!

Cheers and thanks to you all! You made the world a better place.

Used to follow A List Apart like a Bible thanks to you guys! Great job!

Thank you for your successful efforts to set standards for Internet accessibility. 15 years of work … wow, the words “thank you” lack what my heart wants to say. Bravo. Well Done. hugs

I salute all the essential and active work of WaSP, the many thoughts and ideas that were forged here and hope that the work continues to push users and businesses towards better understanding of and alignment to open web standards.

Thank you and keep-on working.

Thanks for helping make the internet a level playing field. Dark were the times of the IE Death Star. Bright are the times ahead.

Thank you for everything WaSP!

Pay no mind to the rotting body of XHTML dumped back of the shed.

The Web is a major step in human history. We, web-developers, and the world are highly indebted to you for making it open and working. We should remain alert that fragmentation doesn’t slip in again and undoes your great work. Thank you!

I hate HTML

I hate You

I hate when people hear Internet they think of browsers :(

hat it hate it

and it is old, old old old tech

Thank you for makeing the web and keeping the dream alive!

This is a really classy way to end a project. Respect.

You guys made the best browser tests… but will there be an Acid4 test one-day?

Thanks for all your hard work over the years! I don’t think there are words to express the gratitude I feel towards WASP and all those groups and individuals who fought for web standards.

Hats off to everybody who participated in this noble project!

Thank you one and all. As a mobile UX designer I know we wouldn’t have the device-agnostic web of today without your efforts. Your contribution to web has been amazing!

Thank you WaSP for all you did. * Doffs hat *

Thanks for everything guys. Has been a blast – TBH I’m still not the worlds best coder but if the browser wars had continued I’d be even worse than I am these days. Have fun and take care.

Having built sites since the late 90s, I can honestly say the impact of the noble W3C/wasp initiatives over the years has been profound. Part of me misses trying to get flash to control java applets in separate framesets … but not a big part of me :)

Thank you WaSP team for seeing and repairing the cracks and holding the web together before it could break!

Thank you for everything.

yes

Great work. Very informative!

Thank you for all the work that has helped give Web developers–and users–a more stable playground.

Thank you guys! Your job is beyond all praise!