A Weakly Source Of Inspiration | January 29, 2004

If Paul Scrivens is officially the busiest man on the web, Russ Weakly has to be running a close second.

Russ runs Max Design, a web design firm in Australia specialising in web standards. Many people will have come across Russ though his excellent Listomatic and Listutorial presentations. Since then, Russ has been building an archive of quality articles at a rate of knots. They are coming so thick and fast, Russ has just posted a new article while I'm still getting round to posting about his last one.

Russ also chairs an organisation called the Web Standards Group. This groups runs regular meeting around Australia, allowing web standards enthusiasts to meet up and discuss issues that interest them. The turnout for these meetings looks pretty good, so It would seem that Oz has one of the most web standards savvy workforces around. By comparison, a quick look at the London web standards group at meeetup.com reveals 3 active members!

The Web Standards Group has a good, active mailing-list and one that I've been tempted to join on a number of occasions, even though I'm not based in Australia (which is a shame in and of it's self!). The list discusses some really interesting topics including a recent one from Russ entitled, Real world use of standards.

If that's not enough, Russ is a regular poster on the webgraphics site. And I thought I was busy!

Posted at January 29, 2004 1:01 PM

Comments

jason said on January 29, 2004 1:52 PM

Too true. There is an awful lot of good CSS stuff at MaxDesign alone. Tutorials and everything. Very selfless and philanthropic, really. He must have a very supportive woman!

dez said on January 29, 2004 2:47 PM

Yes Russ is what we call a “Legend!”. BTW the WSG may have originated in Aus but has an international membership with members from all over. So feel free to join. Also as far as I understand, the WSG supports groups forming all over not just in Aus.The Sydney Group has been meeting for a year and the first meeting of the Melbourne Group takes place in early March.

Scrivs said on January 29, 2004 3:34 PM

Russ is definitely the man when it comes to writing high-class quality articles. We have been talking about getting together and taking a six-month vacation from the web to see if we still have lives ;)

Russ Weakley said on January 29, 2004 7:37 PM

Wow, thanks for the wrap, Andy!

A few points…

1. Yes, I have a very supportive partner, although there have been times when she has wanted to throw me out the window :)

2. All this busy-ness will come to a grinding halt in a few days when our second baby is due.

3. As Dez mentioned, the web standards group started in Sydney (with 8 people meeting in a pub) but now has an international membership of over 230 - from an extremely wide range of countries. Although Sydney is the most active in terms of meetings, Melbourne will following soon and we are hoping to have other cities start up this year. Of course, the mail list is for everyone! :)

Amanda said on January 29, 2004 8:50 PM

I’m one of the Bristish members of WSG, there’s only a few of us so far, but the membership is getting bigger. I’ve found the mailing list a very interesting place, and it’s worthwhile joining: discussion range from practical problems and implementations of standards to the more theoretical implications. Of course Russ even finds to post regular round ups of information to the list as well.

Peter Firminger said on January 29, 2004 9:02 PM

The mailing list is also archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/wsg@webstandardsgroup.org/ if you wish to view it without the email traffic.

Ian said on January 29, 2004 10:21 PM

Wow, thanks Andy! I was well aware of Russ’s presence in the community but was not aware Australia had a group devoted to standards! I’m from Australia so I just signed up quick and smart.
Thanks guys.

Franck said on January 30, 2004 5:17 PM

Yep 100% agree. It is a real challenge to provide articles & tips that complete & straight forward. Pure dynamite practical information.

“Max design” offers best of breed teaching tutorials.

Thanks