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Web Literacy Standard Announced By Mozilla
An anonymous reader writes "Doug Belshaw and Carla Casilli, along with a community of stakeholders, have been working on a specification of skills needed for web literacy. Doug report that Brett Gaylor and Chris Lawrence announced version 1.0 of the spec. In a nutshell it's described as 'A map of the territory for the skills and competencies Mozilla and community think are important to get better at to more effectively read, write & participate on the Web.' Usages include writing curricula influenced by it, and issuing Open Badges that align with it (using the 'alignment' metadata field). Doug also calls for help with localization of the spec into other languages."
I can't be the only one confused by this article summary. It's going to take an hour of reading Wikipedia to figure it out...
Is first posting a skill or a competency?
* Supporting open and non-DRMed standards, so the web doesn't turn into TV 2.0
* Blocking advertisements, since they violate privacy and in some cases carry malware
* Supporting non-locked-down systems, so that running tools like adblock remains up to the people, not to multinational corporations.
* Blocking javascript by default, for the same reasons
* The essential principles of public key crypto, and how to keep their communications secure.
Surely we should be educating people about those things too?
This is utterly pointless crap. No one needs web literacy merit badges. My 70-year-old grandmother gets around just fine on the net without some crummy scout badge. Kids surf the net with ease before they learn not to drink bleach. No one needs net training; it's a false demand created by academics who don't understand that there are more pressing first-world problems to solve, like teaching people to distinguish between an oak and a holm oak.
Who wants to show off having earned their 4chan badge?
>> Community Participation Getting involved in web communities and understanding their practices
WTF? TL;DR.
Blocking advertisements
"You are using an ad blocker. You have three ad-free views left this month. Please subscribe for unlimited ad-free views."
Blocking javascript by default, for the same reasons
All third-party apps in Firefox OS are written in JavaScript. Good luck writing web applications without it, especially web applications intended to run with zero bars.
The essential principles of public key crypto
Would this include how to travel long distances to a key signing party in the same city as someone with whom you wish to communicate?
Why do you need to do all three? Many people use the Web as a data feed, and don't do any of this "Web 2.0" stuff - not I, since clearly I'm participating here. Why assume everyone is a 15yo girl on Facebook? Why even have a spec?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Knowing not to visit sites with "goatse" in the url is literacy enough.
So would I, I'm sure. It'll be some modeish clap-trap that many greybeards will have rejected as not sufficiently better than what we were doing before 99% of the current internet population had even heard of the net.
Know how to say HELO, or GOMFL!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Step 1: ALWAYS SHOW THE FUCKING STATUS BAR! (Firefox, Safari.) And make it the whole width of the window. (Chrome) And it should do exactly ONE thing: show the exact, complete URL of a link you're hovering over.
That is all.
Actually, wait, it isn't. Step 2: ALWAYS SHOW THE ENTIRE URL IN THE URL BAR -- INCLUDING the protocol and all the other ugly bits. In one color text. Again, as much as the width of the window will allow you to see. MAYBE put the main domain in bold so it looks like www.bankofamerica.ihaxxoryou.com/give/me/your/money. But let me turn that off if I know what I'm doing.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
What does this even mean? I got up to the "issuing open badges" bit in the summary, and now I just have a mental picture of people facing Web Literacy Gym Leaders.
Anyone else notice that leaving noscript on shows you all the answers and just gives you the badge?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Step One in a licensing scheme for Internet use?
Do any of these standardisers know what "top-posting" is and why it's a waste of human bandwidth?
Question 1: The data language that defines the structure of a web page is:
a) HTML
b) Javascript
Question 2: Your web browser is at version 4.1.2. You make some minor changes to the code base. The next version of your web browser will be:
a) 4.1.3
b) 37
Question 3: The web standard for full-color animated images is:
a) MNG
b) Verboten
Question 4: This extensible feature allows a browser to load non-standard data formats:
a) Plug-ins
b) A hard-coded component for each format, each of which requires optional features be turned on
Question 5: Your browser does not support a certain feature in the web standards. You should:
a) Add a feature request in your bug tracking system
b) Get the feature removed from the next version of the web standards and close any related feature requests in your bug tracking system.
Question 6: Your browser does support a certain feature in the web standards, like tbody scrollbars. You should:
a) Celebrate
b) Get the feature removed from the next version of the web standards, remove it from the browser, and close any related feature requests in your bug tracking system.
Question 7: You don't feel like implementing all of XHTML2 in your browser. You should:
a) Implement the good parts, skip the bad parts, and develop alternatives to the bad parts.
b) Break XHTML1 pages so developers get a bad feeling about anything with XHTML in the name, then promote an alternate standard that is intentionally incompatible with both versions of XHTML.
Question 8: You have an idea for a completely new web feature like cookies or scripting or a common gateway interface. You should:
a) Send an RFC to developers, collect feedback, implement it, document it, and publish an open-source implementation.
b) Wait for the W3 to act.
Question 9: A certain browser feature is found to be a severe threat to user privacy and security. You should:
a) Develop measures to protect users.
b) Remove the option to disable it.
Question 10: A user who wishes to view the source of a dynamically generated web page can:
a) Select 'view source'
b) Eat a dick
The internet was doing just fine before paywalls.
The Wall Street Journal has been paywalled since 1997. This is more than two-thirds of the time that the World Wide Web has existed.
I've honestly don't know a single person that even considers them. People just surf away to somewhere else when they encounter one.
Not everyone has that luxury, especially when the only lawful source of a given work is paywalled, or all publishers of a given class of works collude to set up a paywall. See the recent Slashdot story Why Johnny Can't Speak.
Would this include how to travel long distances to a key signing party in the same city as someone with whom you wish to communicate?
No, because that is not even vaguely necessary.
How else do you verify that the person you're communicating with is the person you think you're communicating with, not a man in the middle? Just because you have verified a stranger's identity doesn't mean you trust that someone to verify other strangers' identities.
Who ever wrote that run-on sentence needs to some old fashioned literacy,
Dear Mozilla:
I have been sending money your way because I thought it was used to develop Firefox and Thunderbird and other useful code; but for this shite, I rather keep my money.
What's next? The Al Gore achievement award?
Jeez!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
I can't believe nobody has said "we don't need no steenking badges" yet, or pointed out that the exact lines of the quote are different
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The submission didn't leave the 's' off 'reports'.
I expect version 20.0 by December.
... if anything can tame lame social networking and blogs about cats, it would be throwing stifling academia and certifications at it.
People would lose interest in the net in no time.
This is the first lesson. You cannot participate without Google and JavaScript: the discussion forum is on Google and the Mozilla wiki requires registering an account which requires filling in a Google captcha, which requires using JavaScript...
This teaches centralized dependency and ignoring best practices regarding privacy and security, not cool Mozilla.
web literacy: don't use software where the "designers" claim the right to broadcast UI changes to you at their whim.
to get better at to more effectively read, write & participate on the Web
Did someone say literacy?
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
You've never worked a helpdesk, have you? There are few things more painful than spending 40 minutes on a call with someone who can't figure out how to copy and paste, or type their username and password into the provided and labeled fields.
These are people working for some of the biggest engineering firms in the world. I only wish I were joking.
Not knowing the difference between the web and the internet or understanding what IP addresses are does not reduce the employment chances of many people. It maybe more useful than knowing about oak trees (unless you're a carpenter, furniture maker or tree surgeon) but I don't think a lot of taxi drivers / accountants / airline pilots / office workers are too bothered.
This is both useful and important. This will be a great resource for teachers, for example. The alternatives (and they already exist) are copyright maximalist propaganda programs and vendor backed "teaching aids" which mainly push proprietary software (looking at you, Microsoft!). The Mozilla people have a proven track record of dedication to the principles of an open Internet, a solid reputation, and the kind of name recognition that can get them accepted in schools.