[ Visit the ring | Join the ring | Nominate a site for the ring | Report problems with the ring | Information for ring members]
[The beginning] [1999 till August 2000] [Yahoo! Webring integration] [Split rings]
It has been two years since the last time I wrote something in this history and again the reason is a problem with Webring. As longs as everything goes well there is nothing to talk about.
In September 2000 I created a a new Science Humor ring at RingSurf, which was and still is exactly like the old webring and I am still happy with them. I send a mail to the site owners that I wanted the ring moved. Only half of them reacted. I did not hear a word from the rest. From this moment the ring was split.
I kept the Yahoo ring, but froze it and mentioned in the submission description to use the webring homepage which added submissions to the new ring. Furthermore I put the ring on "no new admissions". The only changed I made to the old ring was removing sites which had no longer a ring fragment or did not exist at all.Meanwhile, the new ring is pretty succesfull and now (November 2002) has 38 members. It dropped to the second most popular ring in the science section, but I can live with that. (Never knew people were that interested in weather stations)
In October 2001 I got the following e-mail:Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 19:32:15 -0700 (PDT) From: response@webring.org Message-Id: <200110160232.TAA60124@wr13.yahoo.com> Subject: WebRing is Moving!
Dear WebRing Member,
That's right, WebRing is no longer a part of the Yahoo! network.
What this means to you: You MUST request to have your existing ring and/or site data transferred to the new WebRing servers.
Yahoo!'s "Terms of Service" does not allow member information to be transferred to another entity, including WebRing. If you would like to keep your WebRing you must request to have it transferred by following the link below.
http://edit.webring.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/migrate Transfer my existing ring information to the new WebRing servers
Please note, your ring/site WILL NOT be transferred automatically, you must follow the link above and complete the transfer process. Rings ans Sites not transferred will be lost once the migration period is over.
Questions can be best answered by visiting the new http://dir.webring.com/rw WebRing site.
Thanks
This was quite a surprise. Yahoo decided the rings were not interesting to them and the people who had maintained it started out for themselves and everything became a lot like it was before. If I had waited it out, there would only be one ring. I transferred my site and the ring, but kept if frozen. The ringsurf ring was doing fine without any problems. So in practice everything remained the same. But webring was active. Mainly good things, but it finally broke me up.
October 18, 2002, I received the following mail, which seemed innocent enough:
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 19:34:36 -0700 From: webring@mail2.webring-inc.com Subject: WebRing News!
Greetings WebRing member: joachim.verhagen!
If this email was received in error, see the bottom of this email for instructions on how to cease receiving these announcements.
In the 8 weeks or so since we last sent a general email to members we have made a LOT of changes. This email is to "pre-announce" TWO new features:
1. Automated adoption of system run Rings. Starting on the 21st of OCtober we'll begin adopting out the thousands of system rung Rings to members. These Rings were partially or completely migrated from Yahoo but abandoned or never managed at all for whatever reason. We've waited a year to allow the former RingMasters to claim their Rings. Now it is time to get them into the hands of other enthusiastic members.
We're adding the ability to see ONLY adoptable Rings to the WebRing directory because of the large number of these Rings. Initially we'll allow contributing members view this categorized list of adoptable Rings as a "thank you perk" for having taken the time to contribute to the community in a tangible way. This does NOT mean members must contribute to adopt a Ring. Any member can potentially adopt a WebRing. You should read this month's status report for details regarding how this will work.
2. HTML navigation fragment specification - This will allow RingMasters to specify which navigation links a member site must have to be considered "PASSing" when tested by the system checker. This feature will also be released by October 21st. Note that this ability only applies to members using HTML navigation code. Read this month's status report for details regarding how this will work.
Please read this and prior status reports regarding changes to the system. There have been many, and more are on the way!
Today's!! http://dir.webring.com/h/status20021015 Previous but noteworthy http://dir.webring.com/h/status20021001 http://dir.webring.com/h/status20020904 http://dir.webring.com/h/status20020816 http://dir.webring.com/h/status20020801 http://dir.webring.com/h/status20020723 http://dir.webring.com/h/status20020716
Nearly 2000 members have taken a minute to contribute $5 or more to WebRing to help support a great community. Thank you! We appreciate it and hope you're starting to see the affects in features and performance.
If you're not one of these we hope that you will be motivated to help support WebRing operations and suppress ads while you use WebRing (or promote your Site(s), Rings, advertise or suppress ads on your Ring(s), etc.). To be honest, we'd like to see a lot more of you step up and join us.
Please read more about this feature at http://dir.webring.com/h/promo3
As always, best wishes,
The WebRing Team
To contribute to WebRing you can use PayPal (or go to the promo page link aboce to get our address if you wish to use regular mail):
All kind of plans, but they had nothing to do with me. I thought!
Two weeks later when I tried to enter the ring to check for dead links, I saw it was put out for adoption. Apparently I ring that does not accept new sites is considered abandoned! I immediately submitted a request to adopt the ring, but I was not accepted.
The next e-mail from webring to me was the following:
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 03:39:31 -0800 From: response@webring.org To: joachim.verhagen@xs4all.nl Subject: Announcing New RingMaster
Thank you for your interest in becoming RingMaster of Science Humor Webring. The system has choosen esoterismfr as the new RingMaster.
If you are still interested in becoming a RingMaster, we encourage you to create your own Ring using this link: http://new.webring.com/wrnewring
Thank you for your interest and participation in WebRing.
The WebRing Team
Very Amusing! The last surprise was the new home site: A search engine that has nothing to do with science humor, but loaded with advertising!
So now there are really two science humor webrings, but the only real one is http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scihum/webring.html. Going to Ringsurf was the right choice after all. I just hope for my own peace of mind that I can keep from following what happens to that other ring.
Last change: November 23, 2002
[
Information about the ring |
Visit the ring | Join the ring |
Nominate a site for the ring |
Report problems with the ring |
Information for ring members]
[The beginning]
[1999 till August 2000]
[Yahoo! Webring integration]
This page is maintained by Joachim Verhagen