# 7 silliest W3C specs ever published

Published: 2008-08-13

Author: Emil Stenström

W3C is producing lots and lots of good specifications and we seriously have their joined effort to thank for a lot of today's web. But everything released by them isn't all nice. I've digged deep into obscure search results to find, that's right, the **silliest specifications ever**. \*Drumroll\*.

[HTML+TIME](http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-HTMLplusTIME): Why not add timers to HTML? Didn't you always want to only display that div only the first 4 seconds after load. Could this be combined with the blink tag somehow?

[Predefined icon entities](http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-wwwicn.html): No more images needed! Instead, let browsers implement whatever icons they want and just use them by typing &calculator;, &fax; or &www;. I love the example icon for &gopher;, is that an orc?

[CURIE Syntax](http://www.w3.org/TR/curie/): There are also huge specifications for nothing. What about a 2000+ word specifcation for the syntax: "charcters:characters"? This is what happens when you put too many "scientists" in one room.

[Micropayments in HTML](http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-Micropayment-Markup-19990825/): If you're going to make micropayments on the web, first build your payment system, then add lots of attributes you don't need. Then make sure you pick a short code for your payment system, and get that one in the spec. Ehmm. No.

[Selecting Payment Over HTTP](http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-jepi-uppflow-970106): If you are into paying, but don't really like interfaces, this one is for you. You can't pay through it though, just select how to pay. Makes sense, doesn't it?

[CSS Marquee Module Level 3](http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-css3-marquee-20080801/): Remember the `marquee` element? What if you could implement that on any element, using only CSS3? Isn't marquee behavior? I guess not. "The deadline for comments is 1 September 2008".

[Accessibility for old people](http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-age-literature-20080514/): Very strange. This isn't a specification but a literature review. Could this be the first step for W3C to go into book recommendations? I love the chapter of how to define an old person.

That's all I can find. Now I leave it open to you to fill in with the comments about how useful they could be, and how SOAP should be in the list. Over to you, dear audience.