Opera Software has joined forces with a number of other major technology companies, Adobe, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Nokia to create a new, authoritative open web standards documentation site called Web Platform Docs, available at webplatform.org.
 
The Web Platform Docs addresses the problem of finding a single source of accurate, quality information on all the latest HTML5, CSS3 and other standards features across the multitude of available web-based resources.
 
The site provides detailed documentation on the many technologies used in web development, best practices for using these technologies, and the status of their relative standardization and cross-browser implementation.
 
While the site is a wiki, it has funding and staff on hand to monitor and maintain its content, which means that the information it contains will remain accurate and up to date. All materials on Web Platform Docs are freely available and licensed under creative commons, to foster knowledge sharing and reuse.
 
“We have needed a site like Web Platform Docs for years,” says Lars Erik Bolstad, VP Core Technology, at Opera Software. “Web developers often struggle to find decent information on all the newest technologies that they need to know about; having a single site to turn to that they can trust will save them a lot of time.”
 
The W3C will serve as the site’s curator, and all involved are hoping that the entire web community will come forward to help maintain and improve the content. In future releases, Web Platform Docs will be expanded to providing coding tools, resources for educators to use to teach web-related courses and more.
 
Chris Mills, Opera web evangelist and dev.opera.com managing editor has had a major part in developing the site’s content, but is adamant that the site should be seen as a community effort. “We don’t want this to come across as the giants of the web telling everyone else what to do,” he says. “It’s your site, it’s a wiki, so anyone can add to it and improve existing content.”