Editing Web standards (section)

== Common usage ==
When a web site or web page is described as complying with web standards, it usually means that the site or page has valid [[HTML]], [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] and [[JavaScript]]. The HTML should also meet [[Web accessibility|accessibility]] and [[HTML#Semantic HTML|semantic]] guidelines. Full standard compliance also covers proper settings for [[character encoding]], valid [[RSS]] or valid [[Atom (standard)|Atom]] news feed, valid [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]], valid [[metadata]], valid [[XML]], valid object embedding, valid script embedding, browser- and resolution-independent codes, and proper server settings.

When web standards are discussed, the following publications are typically seen as foundational:
* Recommendations for [[markup language]]s, such as Hypertext Markup Language ([[HTML]]), Extensible Hypertext Markup Language ([[XHTML]]), and Scalable Vector Graphics ([[Scalable Vector Graphics|SVG]]) from W3C.
* Recommendations for [[style sheet (web development)|stylesheets]], especially Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), from W3C.
* Standards for [[ECMAScript]], more commonly JavaScript, from Ecma International.
* Recommendations for Document Object Models ([[Document Object Model|DOM]]), from W3C.
* Properly formed names and addresses for the page and all other resources referenced from it ([[URI]]s), based upon <nowiki>RFC 2396</nowiki>, from IETF.<ref>{{cite IETF
| title       = Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax
| rfc         = 2396
| doi         = 10.17487/RFC2396
| last1       = Berners-Lee
| first1      = Tim
| author-link1 = Tim Berners-Lee
| last2       = Fielding
| first2      = Roy T.
| author-link2 = Roy Fielding
| last3       = Masinter
| first3      = Larry
| year        = 1998
| publisher   = [[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]
| access-date  = 2009-10-27
}}</ref>
* Proper use of [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]] and [[MIME]] to deliver the page, return data from it and to request other resources referenced in it, based on <nowiki>RFC 2616</nowiki>, from IETF.<ref>{{cite IETF
| title       = Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
| rfc         = 2616
| doi         = 10.17487/RFC2616
| last1       = Fielding
| first1      = Roy T.
| author-link1 = Roy Fielding
| last2       = Gettys
| first2      = James
| author-link2 = Jim Gettys
| last3       = Mogul
| first3      = Jeffrey C.
| last4       = Nielsen
| first4      = Henrik Frystyk
| author-link4 = Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
| last5       = Masinter
| first5      = Larry
| last6       = Leach
| first6      = Paul J.
| last7       = Berners-Lee
| first7      = Tim
| author-link7 = Tim Berners-Lee
| year        = 1999
| publisher   = [[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]
| access-date  = 2009-10-27
}}</ref>

Web accessibility is normally based upon the [[Web Content Accessibility Guidelines]]<ref>{{cite web 
|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
|title=Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, W3C Recommendation 5-May-1999
|publisher=W3C
|year=1999
|access-date=2009-02-18
}}</ref> published by the W3C's [[Web Accessibility Initiative]].

Work in the W3C toward the [[Semantic Web]] is currently focused by publications related to the [[Resource Description Framework]] (RDF), [[GRDDL|Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages]] (GRDDL) and [[Web Ontology Language]] (OWL).