W3C was created in 1994 to provide standardization and coordination to guide the long-term development of the World Wide Web. In particular, W3C seeks to preserve the Web's usefulness and interoperability, while improving its accessibility and usability, and while keeping in mind the wide range of issues that the Web impacts.

W3C Activities are coordinated at the top level by the W3C's Advisory Committee, a body made up of one representative from each W3C member organization (see below). Proposals for new Activities are channeled through the W3C Director -- the main technical voice at W3C and the person most immediately responsible for assessing the existence of consensus among the W3C Members. At present, the W3C's Director is Tim Berners-Lee, the Web's inventor and founder of W3C.

When the membership (through the Advisory Committee) has approved a new Activity for W3C to engage in, a call is made for participation in one or more Working Groups that will focus on the Activity. Working Group participation is open to all W3C members. Non-members may participate if invited.

Working Groups provide public status updates on their work at least four times a year.

W3C Working Groups may be asked to provide any number of different deliverables, many of which will be targeted to eventually become W3C Recommendations (the term of art used to describe W3C standards). These generally move through several phases of existence before their final approval by the Advisory Committee: beginning as Working Drafts, they progress to Last Call Working Drafts, Candidate Recommendations, Proposed Recommendations, and finally, Recommendations. The W3C makes a strong effort to achieve consensus at each of these transition points, ultimately ending with a document that has broad support. All these documents are publicly-available, though the day-to-day activities of Working Groups are not.

Participation in W3C is generally limited to members, although non-members may be invited to participate in special circumstances. Membership is open to all organizations under the following terms (quoted from "W3C Membership", http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Prospectus/Joining/).

There are no differences in the rights and privileges offered to Full and Affiliate Members of W3C.

The main organ of decision-making at W3C is the Advisory Committee, a body made up of one representative from each W3C Member. W3C also has a paid staff and W3C Fellows, collectively known as the Team, which provide coordination and support for the membership's activities. Prominent Team members include the Chairman, who provides overall coordination of W3C's operations, and the Director, W3C's lead technical architect.

There is also an Advisory Board, which provides strategic guidance to the Team from time to time. Advisory Board participants include the Chairman and nine other participants, elected by the Advisory Committee. Finally, there is the Technical Architecture Group (TAG), also elected by the Advisory Committee, that helps resolve architectural questions faced by W3C and documents and interprets principles of responsible Web development.

The W3C home page: http://www.w3.org/

About the W3C: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/

W3C Process document: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/

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