Post #2621914
2025-11-30 00:02 UTC
In December 1997, the HP-hosted list went offline due to a combination of holiday (Christmas) site maintenance and the physical relocation of HP’s list server. The outage was expected to last from December 18, 1997, to January 5, 1998. To avoid disrupting ongoing discussions, W3C stepped in as a courtesy and quickly provisioned a temporary list at ietf-http-wg@w3.org.
Replies (1)
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@xfq@w3c.social 2025-11-30 00:03
Although the HP list returned online on schedule in early January 1998, the HTTP WG did not migrate back. Instead, discussions continued on the W3C-hosted list. In the late 1990s, the IETF relied on volunteer-hosted or third-party servers for mailing lists. W3C, as a dedicated standards body with robust, publicly accessible email infrastructure optimized for technical discussions, provided a more stable alternative. The W3C’s lists.w3.org service has remained highly reliable.