I can't completely work out whether this is or is not an Anti-Microsoft thread... you seem to be saying that W3 Standards are more important than the 'standard' you'll find in more than 90% of browsers used?

If you want the Racism Theory in it; Minorities don't force Majorities to do things. Majorities chance their minds and decide they want to do something. Broswers have lived together for years; and Internet Explorer has worked on its own without Standards for years, since Internet Explorer was created and crushed Netscape. You'll find Internet Explorer users don't mind this. People like it - as it allows Websites to be seen as they have been seen for years; how Internet Explorer renders them. It is the Minorities only who have the problem with this. Tiny Minorities. Its not even comparable to a White-Black thing - because the Minority is so insignificant. Its practically a... I don't know... I can't think of any Minority of significance that matches the situation but regardless to say they can do nothing,

Standards are all well and good but only when they are Standards. We all need standards - they are what makes Windows so brilliant, what makes CDs so brilliant, what will decide whether HDV or Blu-Ray come out better or indeed if they come out like DVDR+ and DVDR-. So long as they are standards.

Now I'm not sure what people are thinking when they think W3 is the only standard. When 90% or browsers, as I have said before, run something - is that or is that not a Standard. Would it or would it not be so much easier for the W3 to set that standard as their standard. That way they start with 90% compliance; and then they can change their setups as they want, and Microsoft can comply. It just makes it all a whole lot more complicated when people think oh no - its Microsoft - lets not do what the Majority are doing, lets do something different. Now... who make the most useless system... who lost a browser war and who are the smallest makers of Browsers in the World... let's do that they do! That will make our standard very fun.

It just doesn't make sense in the slightest.

I cannot however agree with Legendary. Standards are needed and while people don't realise Microsoft can and do make and set standards just like any Consortium can we will continue to see all manor of useless Consortiums popping up into the public eye and then out again. Plug and Play for instance - I would say the most significant help to External Additions to one's PC - is only in Windows. If it was a standard; think how useful it would be to those strange folks you find living in black houses with Hooded Jackets breaking into systems and using z instead of s and Txt instead of Text and destroying hundreds of years of the English Language. It would be of most help to Linux it has to be said - but would anybody take it as a Standard? Although of course - Microsoft wouldn't put it out as a Standard because of that very problem. The Drivers Layer of Windows in Linux would not be fun. But even if they did - Linux users wouldn't use it. Nobody would think of it as a standard if Microsoft owned it. Nobody knows why people have these problems with it... but it slows development and makes Journalists and Lawyers Fat and Happy.

I don't know about you - but the more dead Journalists and Lawyers Floating down the River to the Sea the better.

EDIT:

You'll also find nobody moans about Internet Explorer Rendering improperly - they'll moan about the sites not looking right. The Designers use Firefox - but the users don't know what Firefox is. A Level Computing - the best Computing Minds in a school of 1,400 only two people know about Firefox. Neither use it (one being myself). On a Computer Forum, aptly named Computer Forum; with over 5,000 Members - all of about 50 use Firefox. That is a Computer Forum - and while it has to be said most of the best in the Forum use Firefox, hardly 1% use it on a Forum so 'Elite'.

You consider the sheer mass of Internet Explorer users, and you moan about it 'not rendering properly'. That is merely an excuse for your insignifiant problems. Things that can be easily changed. You say there's no reason to make two versions of it just because Internet Explorer doesn't display right - don't. Make one - for Internet Explorer. Ditch the excuses for inaccurancies - everybody makes design mistakes. Its not even as if those people know the W3 Standards; or learnt from it. They learnt themselves - and they think Firefox is a better browser so they test in Firefox and moan at Internet Explorer when they finally test it in there upon completion.

Nobody designs sites upon what less than 50,000 people (generally less because you won't find so many on one site but lets go by the Statistics) use on a Site with a Million Users. You have to design for the other 920,000 who will have Internet Explorer or MSN Explorer or Opera or Safari. Be damned the other insignificant number of people for being stupid enough to use a Browser which supports a Dead Standard.