Reviews and public feedback
Public reviews of specifications are critical to ensuring their relevance and quality. You can help improve the quality of W3C work through reviews of specifications and charters.
People who like to write code or work with software can contribute to W3C in a variety of ways, described below.
Specifications 
W3C groups use public-review-announce, via a notifier, as one means to solicit wide review of publications. W3C welcomes review of specifications from the moment they are first published until just before they are published as standards. Each W3C Technical Report includes a "Status of this document" section near the front. In this section, you will find information about where to send comments.
Depending on where a document is in the standards process, W3C seeks different types of input:
- First public draft: W3C seeks general statements of support and technical feedback, and encourages participation in Working Groups by those interested in developing the technology.
- Call for Implementations: this is a signal from W3C that the document is stable enough to gather implementation experience from the community.
- Call for Review of a Proposed Recommendation: W3C seeks endorsement by the W3C Membership of the stable technical report.
Deep technical reviews are most appreciated early in the process, although people may spot bugs at any time and provide that feedback to W3C. The W3C Process is designed to promote fairness, responsiveness, and progress. Learn more about requirements on the Recommendation track and reviews and review responsibilities.
Report a bug
Errors in specifications are revealed over time through usage. If you believe that you have spotted a bug in a specification, we invite you to do the following:
- If the specification is a standard ("W3C Recommendation"), the cover page of the specification will include a link to an errata page. The errata page will tell you whether this is a known bug and if so may list a proposed correction. The errata page should also explain what to do if your bug is not listed.
- For draft documents, the "Status Section" of the document includes information about where to send feedback on the specification.
In general, the more information you can provide to help understand the bug, the better.
Upcoming charters 
As part of the W3C Process of deciding to start new work, the W3C Membership reviews draft charters. At the same time, W3C invites public comment on draft charters; see the archive of announcements of draft charters.
Implement specifications
As part of the standards process, W3C requires that groups demonstrate implementation experience. W3C seeks implementation experience as part of standardization and welcomes public participation.
Use or develop a test suite
W3C works with the community of software developers to create test suites that help show interoperable implementation of specification features. Learn more about using test suites from W3C:
- Licenses for W3C Test Suites
- The web-platform-tests project, includes the available test suites.
or developing one:
- web-platform-tests documentation
- Policies for contributions to W3C Test Suites
- How to decide what tests are needed for a spec?
- web-platform-tests dashboard
Evaluate implementations
W3C does not currently have a certification program (for software, content, individuals, or other organizations). However, W3C encourages people to evaluate content and software that claim support of standards and to report findings to the parties responsible for the content or software. During the course of an evaluation, if you believe you have encountered a bug in a specification, we invite you to report the bug.
Use or contribute to W3C open source
W3C is a strong supporter and user of open source software. W3C invites you to consult and contribute to the complete list of W3C open source projects.