Welcoming Test the Web Forward to W3C 

Two years ago a group of Web developers led by Divya Manian and Paul Irish launched a small web project called Move the Web Forward. Its fresh look, cute dinos, and grass-root nature quickly caught the attention of Adobe who reached out to the original creators and obtained the permission to start as spinoff focused on testing. Test the Web Forward was born.

A Thriving Community & a Recognizable Brand

Fast forward two years. Test the Web Forward is a recognizable brand among Web developers and thriving community bringing together Web developers and experts from all over the World to learn, share, write tests and improve browser interoperability.

Smart tag lines and cute logo aren't enough to build brands or communities, though. That takes hard work and dedication. Over the course of these two years, Adobe tirelessly fostered this community, organizing events, bringing in other key members of the industry to help along.

Adobe was so successful at driving this effort, that little after I joined W3C as a fellow from Facebook, I overheard Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web and W3C's Director, refer to the W3C testing effort I was starting to pull together as "Test the Web Forward." That was a strong enough incentive to approach Adobe to suggest using Test the Web Forward as the umbrella brand for the entire Open Web Platform testing effort. Adobe was delighted with the proposal and obliged.

Today, I'm delighted to announce that we finalized the transaction and that Adobe officially gave the Test the Web Forward brand to W3C. In a sense that's a technicality, though. Test the Web Forward is essentially a community effort which W3C is proud to host.

Scaling-up Events & Revamping testthewebforward.org

What will this change, you might ask. Well, for Test the Web Forward Events, not much in the short run. Adobe has done a tremendous job teaming up with the industry and the community to organize events so far and will continue doing so in the near future. Longer term, however, the plan is to make Test the Web Forward Events more scalable and self-sustainable. For, at the current rate, it would take over a decade to complete the HTML5 test suite. So, whether you're interested in hosting a local Test the Web Forward meet-up, sponsor or host one of the larger events, please get in touch.

The website has also been recently overhauled. It now includes a blog, and more importantly, the canonical documentation for W3C Open Web Platform testing effort. The website's full source code is available on GitHub. Contributing couldn't be easier.

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that have helped make this possible, and in particular Rebecca Hauck, Larry McLister and Israel Noto Garcia of the Adobe Web Platform Team. I hope to see some of you at the upcoming Test The Web Forward Event in Shenzhen.

Test the Web Forward Shenzhen @ TPAC Nov 9 2013 – Registration Now Open! 

Registration for Test the Web Forward @ TPAC is now open. We're excited to be heading back to China for the third time for a day of learning, hacking, and Making a Better Web. We warmly welcome all TPAC attendees as well as the Web development communities in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Hong Kong and surrounding areas.

• When: Saturday, November 9 2013 9am-7pm
• Where: Wuzhou Guest House (TPAC conference venue) Shenzhen, China
• Why: To Make the Web a Better Place!

Full details can be found on the event page. We're still finalizing our lineup of speakers and experts, so check back often for updates or follow us on Twitter @testthewebfwd or Weibo @TestTheWebForward, #testtwf on both.

Delicious food, drinks, and a great time is promised to all who attend. Space is limited so register soon!

Hope to see you there!

Test the Web Forward - September Newsletter 

The Fall Equinox is celebrated worldwide through various cultural traditions, many of which center around harvest and growth. As we pass through this season, we're celebrating the same in our Test the Web Forward community. Both of the events this month are examples of people outside of the core TestTWF team planting the seeds and cultivating the growth of the movement in their local areas. Read more about these events below.

Welcome New Subscribers

Welcome to our new subscribers from Sacramento! It was great meeting you and answering your great questions about testing browsers.

Upcoming TestTWF Events

HTML5 DevConf, San Francisco, CA: October 22-23

If you're planning on being at the HTML5 Developer's Conference in October in SF and want to learn more about what we're doing, stop by our table and say hi. We'll be there answering questions about TestTWF and WebPlatform.org and passing out goodies!

Test the Web Forward @TPAC, Shenzhen, China: November 9, 9AM-7PM CST

Early registration for TPAC attendees is now open. If you're a W3C member and registered for TPAC, you'll be receiving an access code through email. Registration will be open for everyone on October 7. Follow @TestTheWebForward on Twitter or Weibo to get latest updates. For more information about the schedule, experts & speakers, and the program, visit the event site. Updates will be made there regularly.

Past TestTWF Events

HTML5J Tokyo: Test the Web Forward Meetup

Back in June, when we left Tokyo, there was excitement about more TestTWF events in Japan in the future. Masataka Yakura took the lead and on behalf of HTML5J, he's happy to report that that the first TestTWF Meetup in Tokyo on September 14th went well. They had about 20 attendees including a few returning folks from the first Tokyo event. He expresses big thanks to them for helping newcomers writing and submitting tests!

Check out these write-ups from a couple of attendees:

• HTML5 Experts.jp article - JA
• hayashih's recap - JA

HTML5 Sacramento Meetup

In the spring, we met Chris Minnick, who runs the Sacramento HTML5 user group in Northern California. He reached out to us to bring TestTWF to his community we were happy to oblige. On September 17, we gathered at the super cool HackerLab space and educated people on ways they can get involved in contributing to the Open Web by writing tests and by writing documentation on WebPlatform.org. It was a nice evening with a very enagaged group who by the end of it were eager to get started right away.

New and Improved TestTheWebForward.org!

We are excited and proud to announce the relaunch of TestTheWebForward.org this month. This marks one of the key deliverables of the Open Web Platform Testing initiative kicked off earlier this year, led by Tobie Langel. Prior to this launch, the website was just a place for information about events. Now, it is so much more: It's W3C's one stop shop for Open Web Platform testing. This includes a rich set of centralized documentation to get you started, a blog to keep you informed of what's happening, and vastly improved event pages -- past, present, and future. And this is only the beginning. Stay tuned for developments on what's next and of course, how you can become a contributor!

Get Involved

Contribute

The best thing about the new TestTheWebForward.org is that it belongs to everyone and your contributions are warmly welcomed. Do you see Something missing in the documentation? Have an idea for more useful content? Would you like to write or cross-post a blog entry about your Experience testing browsers? Please contribute! The site's content is hosted in a public GitHub repo, so the contribution process couldn't be easier - just send a pull request. See the contribution guidelines for more info.

Host your own Test the Web Forward event!

Follow Masataka's and Chris' lead and have an event in your area! Whether you'd like to have a small info session meetup, a one day hackathon, or a larger event like we're planning for Shenzhen, let us know at public-testtwf-planning@w3.org. We have kits to get you going.

Quotes of the Month

As we navigate millions of words on Twitter, Github, mailing lists, and our inboxes, from time to time someone says something that captures the spirit of the Test the Web Forward movement. Here are some we came across in September:

  "The good news is about one-third were also at the June TestTWF. Yes,
  returning Forwardistas! It was really great to have them; they were kind
  enough to help us and others writing tests, so people who were new to the 
  event were able to submit tests. What a beautiful community, isn't it?"

  -- Masataka Yakura, on the turnout at the Tokyo TestTWF Meetup

  "Authoring tests is not the end of the story. It's actually the beginning."

  -- Yuta Kitamura, Github test review

"TestTheWebForward.org - Join the rebellion [tm]"

  -- Rodney Rehm, Frontend Conference, Zurich

Let's keep Making the Web a Better Place!

Test the Web Forward - August Newsletter 

With one big event finished and another one already in the works, it's been another busy month. We're excited to give you this update and let you know of all the new ways YOU can join the movement and help Make a Better Web.

Welcome New Subscribers!

First, a very warm welcome to all of our new subscribers from Shanghai! We're happy to have you join our ever-growing Test the Web Forward community and we're blown away by the fantastic success of your event.

Upcoming TestTWF Events

Sacramento HTML5 Meetup: September 17, 7PM PDT

Due to a last minute cancellation last month, we've rescheduled the Sacto meetup for September 17, extending your opportunity to come meet some of the TestTWF team and learn more about it. We'll be co-presenting with Julee Burdekin of WebPlatform.org, who'll be letting you know how you can also contribute to web platform docs. RSVP on Meetup.com.

Test the Web Forward @ TPAC, Shenzhen, China: November 9, 9AM-7PM CST

Now that we've wrapped up the Shanghai event, we've kicked off the planning for our next event. Because we love China so much, we're heading back! This time we'll be in Shenzhen and for the first time, Test the Web Forward will be part of of the W3C's annual TPAC conference. If you're a W3C working group member planning to be at TPAC and you'd like to come and offer your expertise on your favorite spec, please let us know! Contact Rebecca Hauck at rhauck @adobe.com. If you're unable to attend TPAC but would like suggest specs or areas that need tests, we'd also love your input. You can contact Rebecca directly or if you'd like to start a group discussion, please use our new TestTWF event planning mailing list - see more info on this new list below.

Past TestTWF Events

Test the Web Forward Shanghai Roundup

What can we say? Shanghai, you ROCK! Over 350 passionate web developers showed up and joined the movement setting yet another TestTWF World Record of 1003 tests! Big congrats to Baidu and Adobe China for a successful event. Some nice write-ups from our friends in China:

• Fiona Duan's recap - with lots of pictures! - EN
• Angel Li's Event Report - EN
• CSDN.com - "TTWF Extreme Programming..." - ZN
• 51CTO.com article - ZN
• Infoq.com - "Test the Web Forward Shanghai Event Review" - ZN
• Netease New Media article - ZN
• CWW.net article - ZN

Adobe TechLive Webinar

If you're still curious about what Test the Web Forward is and wer unable to join us earlier this month for the Adobe TechLive webinar, watch and listen to the recording on YouTube to learn the history, the goals, and the progress of the movement.

New TestTWF Mailing List

We're pulling back the curtain a little on our event planning process and we're inviting all of you to participate. We've created a new public mailing list for this purpose: public-testtwf-planning@w3.org. If you have ideas for events (especially to suggest areas or specs that really need tests) or have questions about running your own, use this list to reach out.

Get Involved

Host your own Test the Web Forward event!

If you're a community leader, part of a web-related user group, or belong to an organization that wants to Make the Web a Better Place, consider hosting an event of your own or partnering with others in your area to put one on. If you'd like to have a small meetup-style event or we can point you in the right direction. A Meetup Kit is available and you can contact Susan Parini at parini @adobe.com to get you started.

For assistance in planning larger events like the one we just had in
Shanghai, we'll be rolling out a full Event Kit very soon. If you're interested in hosting, partnering, sponsoring, or participating in a future event, let us know at public-testtwf-planning@w3.org.

Let's keep Making the Web a Better Place!

Test the Web Forward Shanghai! 

We’re pleased to report that the seventh Test the Web Forward on August 17 & 18 has wrapped up successfully. The Shanghai development community is very passionate about the Web as the event attracted nearly 350 web developers on the first day and 150 on the second day. By the end of the event, 1003 tests and 35 bugs were submitted, setting yet another Test the Web Forward world record!

The event took place at Parkyard Hotel, funded by Baidu Cloud Group and kicked off on Saturday afternoon. With a scheduled start time of 2:00pm, people began to arrive at 1:00 and formed a long queue to get registered. We set up a signature wall where people signed their names to make the commitment to making the Web better and of course, took photos. We also prepared lots of gifts for attendees, including Test the Web Forward T-shirts, HTML5 stickers, tags, W3C mugs and Baidu radiation-proof stickers. Developers loved these things.

The event started with two special guests: Mr. Chen Shangyi, VP of Baidu and Mr. Hou Ziqiang, Member of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Dean of Institue of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. They delivered the message on the importance of Web Standards to China government and industry.

The next speaker was Paul Cotton, HTML5 Work Group Chairman. Paul gave an update on the latest progress of HTML, shared the roadmap and introduced the process of publishing a W3C spec. During the Q&A session, Paul clarified the misunderstanding between W3C and WHATWG. Paul personally believes that the relationship between W3C and WHATWG is a partnership. Although they don’t have a release process, they have a mutual goal that Make a better Web.

The lightning talks were next, where the experts introduced themselves, gave quick reviews of several specs, and recruited new test writers for their favourite specs. People joined six groups to write tests for HTML Drag and Drop, IndexedDB, File API, CSS Transforms, Grid Layout, Backgrounds and Borders. Jian Zhang from Adobe China wrapped up the day with sessions on How to Create W3C Tests.

Each group had 5 reviewers.

The evening wrapped with a great buffet. Developers enjoyed the yummy food and nice environment. Everyone was ready for hacking the next day!

On Sunday, the test hacking began. Zhiqiang Zhang from Intel China and gave an informative talk on How to Write Good Tests and How to File Good Bugs.

As is customary, we used a Chinese tanggu drum to signal when tests were completed and to get people motivated to submit more tests. The drumbeats began pretty quickly when a young developer had the first test of the event approved.

During the whole event, we saw everyone concentrated and fully involved. Experts were extremely busy assisting developers and reviewing their tests.

Although contributing to make the web better was rewarding in itself, the awards and raffle prizes made it even more fun. Prizes included US$1000 cash for the outstanding individual contributor, an iPad Mini, and several Kindles.

Outstanding Service Award: Mr. Min Zhang won the first place with 319 Drag & Drop tests!

Best Bug-hunter : Tina filled 8 bugs for Webkit, Safari and Mozilla!

All in all, the event resulted in the creation of 1003 tests! And with those tests, 36 new bugs were found and submitted across multiple browsers.

Special Thanks
We have to say Thank You Baidu for successfully hosting the event at Shanghai and to Intel for super technical support! We were excited to see that people made new friends, improved their knowledge of web standards testing, and we continued moving the Web forward a little bit more.