Watership Down Webring

[enteirah]

Some folks may remember some years back I used to run the Watership Down Webring, however Webring.com decided to rip everyone's rings back off them so they could build 'Webring 2.0' (and make a heap of cash on the side). The basic problem was that webrings are an old concept, and the new independent Webring.com company decided they needed to hop on some well passed bandwagons to save it out of fear it wouldn't work in the modern times. Since then I've only dipped in and out, but the following has been spotted:-

* Removal of anything and everything which doesn't promote Webring.com
* Introduction of text messaging (what?)
* Ads plastered everywhere
* Introduction of blogs, forums so people can talk about topics (not the sites), affiliate progams... You see people don't want a webring that takes them through a ring of related and connected sites anymore! =:P
* Removal of the whole principle of the webring being about directing you through the sites, instead taking you to webring.com every chance there is with an iframed 'preview' (if you still have a navbar on your site, give it a try!)

To think people used to moan in the short time Yahoo ran them, and we were promised such big things after the demerger. The icing on the cake has to be when I checked in today, and just when I thought they could make the place no more of a pit they proved me wrong. It seems they've finally got round to reassigning all the ripped rings to people, which have been maintained by an automated bot for about 3 years now. The process used to decide this? Well, naturally whoever pays them the most money, and they make no secret of it outright calling them 'auctions'. :P

A sad end to such a long running community site really. As for the WD Ring itself, I think one of my upcoming projects for 2009 is going to be to rebuild it from scratch, away from webring.com's shithole. I would have done this years back when the rot was clearly first setting in, except there are a lot of the old ringmembers who've disappeared off the net, thus are uncontactable to update the navigation code. Even so, I think a slightly smaller webring would be better than the atrocity Webring.com are running now. :(

Comments

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

The thing I used to hate about webrings, was when someone removed a site, and it broke the whole ring.

[darac.livejournal.com]

I suspect that's a bug in the implementation. You probably want to do a sort of mini "stumbleupon" idea. Or, basically, move most of the code server side.

Instead of adding code to link to the next person's site, you link to a script on the server which takes you to the next members site. If that's down or gone, it removes that site from the ring and sends you to another member in the ring.

I remember when Geocities used to give out numbered web sites, like houses in a community. It was nice seeing who your 'neighbours' were, but the net's just not like that any more.

[enteirah]

That is how Webring's code has always worked, directing everything through redirection server side and is how I'd write anything seperate, though it's also what gives them the power to abuse it (ie, if they choose to make some extra cash by diverting you into their site rather than to the next site in the ring, tough :P).

Where rings used to break was when someone took the navigation code out completely, so you'd come in, but there'd be no out link again. Or the common sorts who'd add Yahoo Groups, then find they couldnt actually put HTML code in there. Though sites like that were supposed to be advised then dropped if they couldn't fix it (I'd generally supply a workaround; wasn't tidy as it used a frame, but ensured they never had to be dropped whilst keeping the ring running).

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

Yeah; I must admit that I wonder what the point is any more. Admittedly part of that is that there are so few active WD sites these days, even if you count ones like mine as "active" despite its not having had an actual update since last year. =:S Mind you, I'd certainly be happy to participate in any independent webring project you set up. =:)

[enteirah]

My latest WD site update is a bloody annoying one. Thank you 123-reg for your helpful resetting of information, then stupidly long cache times on Domain Name settings... =:\