Despite not having regular funding, meeting place or constitution, the UGA Web Developers Group is becoming its own flourishing community.

WDG also provides a unified voice for web developers in dealing with new applications and site-designs that might affect other departmental sites.

“Now, [University designers] can reach out to the group to say, ‘This is what we have plans for, how does it impact you and what do we need to consider?’ Before, that didn’t exist. You would just throw it out there and keep your fingers crossed,” said Janet Beckley, web developer for the University’s official Web site.

WDG is developing a set of standards for University department sites to streamline their web designing process, increasing efficiency and making sure to satisfy Internet legal requirements. In the meantime, WDG just wants to keep helping people work with the web, said Jinny Potter, one of the founders and coordinators.

“The web is no longer just something that you use on your computer . and when you have a community like this you can kind of relax and don’t have to be an expert on everything, there are experts who are very excited about sharing that information with you.”

“From about ’02 to ’07, [the group] was a listserv with one meeting to its name,” Potter said.

After gathering support and enough funding to get started, WDG had their first official meeting in August 2007. “If we can get them together a couple times with free food and a presentation . I bet we could get this thing started,” Potter said.

Since that time, it has matured into a monthly meeting of 50 tech-minded members and a listserv of more than 300 subscribers.

One Thursday a month, the group of web developers, graphic designers and IT staffers gather for a “Lunch and Learn” session that is open to faculty and staff. The group shares notes, discuss career difficulties and have professional presentations.

“It goes back to the spirit of sharing information and hoping that we can stop duplicating effort and learn from each other,” Potter said.

“It seems like it’s been around a lot longer because it really is a community of web developers,” said Derek Greer, a member of WDG. The group now also looks to build the University web community outside of its members. Because of lack of funding and busy work schedules though, WDG members rely not on Internet based, top down networking, but are growing relationships from the bottom up.

“Our services are really high in demand right now, and we love it,” said Beckley, art director in the Office of Public Affairs, but this high demand leaves little time for group members to develop their own resources. “The last people on our list are ourselves.”

So instead, WDG members use their inter-group connections to link their office to specialists across campus.

“We’re like a support group,” Beckley said.