@fulanigirl @atomicpoet @kraft @fediversenews We have rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 fortunately, which standardized at least the language in this regard in a simple way.

A LOT of especially the low-level protocols effectively run on these "request for comments" documents, while the w3.org manages mainly recommendations for higher-level protocols like web pages, web accessibility (in terms of disability accommodation features) and ActivityPub.

(There's also the IEEE, which, among many other things, publishes often very polished and nice standards documents for certain data exchange formats like JPEG, but they're quite expensive to access.)

Not all of these are nice to work with. Certain grown systems like IRC and email can be difficult to implement in a way that works in practice with large existing implementations, for example, even if the original core protocol is very simple. Many RFCs describe fairly complex compounds that reference other de-facto standards, too.