WASP in Walsall
You may have heard of the Web Standards Project (WaSP), you may have also heard of the Brit Pack (it’s just the UK-leg of the WaSP). Well, I’ve taken it upon myself to form a group of like-minded web developers in the West Midlands.
I had the idea after coming across Upcoming.org. After going to @media 2005, I realised that there is actually quite a huge following of Web Standards in the UK and there are many developers who are biting the bullet and moving forward with their development skills. I later realised that there were a couple of lads from the Walsall area who had also attended the @media conference, of which I have been corresponding with on occasion. I thought the other day that there must be other web developers around Walsall, Birmingham and Wolverhampton who might be interested in catching up with fellow nerdy designers so I set up a group on Upcoming.org (currently known as WM WASP), set a date and hope to get a few attendees on the day. I know for a fact that the BritPack occasionally meet up for a few pints every now and then to discuss their latest discoveries and debate over where its all going so why can’t we?
If you live in the vicinity of the West Midlands and fancy a cheeky pint over in Walsall, drop in.
I don’t see any reason why I can’t be there.
Tom
6 Sep 05 at 7:14 pm
Hey great idea, if only I lived up your way.
Cheers for my link on the B-list Britpack it’s a nice touch. Maybe we need a B-list logo?!
PS: I actually live in Kent and work in East Sussex!
Stuart
7 Sep 05 at 11:15 am
[...] nds Web Standards
Spoken on Thursday, Sep 8th at 12:02am GMT
Simon is organising a little Web Standards get togeather in the West Midlands. It’s in Wasall on the 1st [...]
thedeplorableword | Archive | West Midlands Web Standards
8 Sep 05 at 12:58 am
Actually sorry, I won’t be able to make it. Hope it goes well.
Tom
29 Sep 05 at 12:08 pm
Sorry, didn’t come across this until too late…. I might have been able to make it. (It would make a welcome change to go to something in Walsall for once!)
If you’d like to advertise it more, I’d suggest you post on phpwm.org or wolveslug.org.uk, as there are a few people there who are interested in such things.
David.
David Goodwin
2 Oct 05 at 12:21 pm
I’m very excited to see the emergence of more and more like-minded groups coming together to help promote web standards, educate each other, and network in general.
A few points of clarification:
WaSP is not an open-member organization at this time. We certainly extend a warm embrace to all groups around the world doing this work and carrying the word forward, and are constantly evaluating ways to balance the need to keep things tightly focused within our WaSP efforts with a desire to network and extend our limitations. To that end, we’re holding our annual meeting in a public forum this year at SXSW. I hope many UK folks come!
Speaking of U.K. folks, the Brit Pack is not an arm of WaSP. While some members of the Brit Pack are WaSPs, the Brit Pack itself is a bunch of British designers and developers who share a common passion, get together occassionally and who fill up eachothers’ inboxes with banter.
I’m concerned somewhat with your using the WaSP name in this context. I don’t want to appear greedy or exclusive - that’s not the point. But your group is independent of WaSP, at least at this time. As such, while it certainly could be tagged as a friend of WaSP or somesuch, using the actual WaSP name blurs the reality of the situation.
Again, these are not meant to be critical points - I truly am delighted about what you’re doing, I just think we need to talk more about how to coordinate all of that into sensible, factual ways. Feel free to ping me in email and maybe we can help each other do just that.
With best regards,
Molly E. Holzschlag
WaSP Group Lead
Molly E. Holzschlag
2 Oct 05 at 10:35 pm
What do I do if I’m a WaSP and a Britpack member (not the same thing, as Molly says) *and* in the West Midlands?
Stuart Langridge
17 Oct 05 at 5:59 pm