Re: Hippocratic Oath for Webmasters

--- Martin Poulter <M.L.Poulter@bristol.ac.uk> wrote:

> 
> Hello everybody,
>  	I one of a small group of professional webmasters
> in the UK who 
> have regular physical meetings. We are trying to
> codify and promote best 
> practice. I am used to referring people to the W3C's
> QA efforts, 
> including the QA Tips page and TimBL's writings in
> http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/ .
>  	However, the QA tips are not ideal for our
> purposes. They are 
> addressed to authors and webmasters. We want a
> statement of best 
> practice that is intelligible to users (so they
> recognise that someone is
> working to make the web easier for them) and
> managers (so they 
> understand why we spend time working to achieve
> this). This led to the 
> idea of a "Webmaster Pledge", written as a letter to
> a user.
>  	This is not a badge that requires a judging panel
> to enforce 
> it: I'm not revisiting "Top 5% of web sites". This
> is more like Buddhist 
> ethical codes ("I undertake to refrain from...") or
> maybe the Hippocratic
> Oath.
>  	After an initial brainstorming session, I've
> boiled down a 
> ten-point, 300-word pledge, which I've included at
> the foot of this 
> email. As you can imagine, it's very hard to make
> something that is in 
> plain English, technically correct, challenging,
> attainable and 
> non-presumptive about the nature of the site
> (educational, commercial, 
> personal...) being discussed. For instance, we say
> that URLs 
> should be bookmarkable, rather than URIs, because
> there might be 
> one-shot URIs used legitimately in some applications
> such as 
> e-commerce, but more importantly because the
> nontechnical audience is 
> more likely to recognise the term "URL".
>  	A temporary site for the pledge, with annotations
> and more
> background, has been created here:
>
http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Webmaster_Pledge
> 
> I've joined this list because I'd be interested in:
> * Comments on the idea of a webmaster pledge
> * Suggestions on any important topics that have been
> missed out
> * Improvements to the form of words we have so far
> (especially ways to
>  	make the first item succinct)
> 
> Thanks in advance for comments of any nature.
> 
> 
> Webmaster Pledge v0.3
> Authored by the HE Academy Technical Group, edited
> by Martin Poulter
> 
> 1. Pages on our site will have a clear, consistent
> structure that lets 
> you find and use the content no matter whether you
> are using a 
> graphical, text-only, speech browser, mobile device
> or even reading the 
> page on a printout. Although we cannot guarantee a
> site will work on all 
> past, present and future browsers, we aim to be
> usable with all current 
> browsers and operating systems.
> 
> 2. Content on our site will have meaningful URLs and
> be bookmarkable. If 
> we move or delete documents, the old URL will be
> redirected to a 
> relevant part of the site.
> 
> 3. Our site will not break the controls on your web
> browser.
> 
> 4. Links will give you a reasonable idea of what
> will happen when you 
> click on them, and warn you if it requires a large
> download or a helper 
> application.
> 
> 5. We will regularly check for and replace broken
> links. Content that 
> isn't marked as archived or given a definite date
> will be regularly 
> checked.
> 
> 6. The document content of the site will be
> searchable in a way that 
> supports multiple terms, phrases and combinations of
> terms. Search 
> results will show you the location of each file and
> its relevance to 
> your search terms.
> 
> 7. We will not hold personal information about you
> without your express 
> permission.
> 
> 8. We will never show you a bare error message. If
> there is an error 
> (e.g. incorrect password, mistyped link), you will
> be told what the 
> problem is and what you can do next.
> 
> 9. We will not make content difficult to read with
> superfluous music or 
> animation or intrusive advertising.
> 
> 10. When you use our site for a transaction, such as
> making a purchase 
> or creating a personal account, it will be clear at
> which stage you are 
> and what remains to be done.
> 
> 
> More explanation of this version at
>
http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Webmaster_Pledge_v0.3


I think it's a great idea. But it's not always
feasible to implement everything on that list
especially when working with legacy code (although
that should be the long term goal).

Starting from the ground up, this list should be a
guideline. I'm not sure I like the "pledge" and
"hippocratic oath" spin on it, as it's a nice goal,
but will not always be able to live up to those
standards in real life.

Something I think WOULD be helpful in that list is
links to resources at the end of each point to guide a
webmaster in accomplishing that goal. (preferably all
w3.org links).



Anthony Ettinger
ph: (408) 656-2473
web: http://www.apwebdesign.com

Received on Tuesday, 22 November 2005 17:04:20 UTC