Posting to WebringringsUncensored

It's now over a month since Black Tuesday - the death of the Webring system as we knew it. Since it's Friday the 13th, I thought it might be appropriate to spend a few minutes to add my two cents to some of the discussions going on here in this group.

Since Black Tuesday a lot has changed, for most of the members of this group and myself certainly, as well as for all ringmasters and ringmembers [in Webring] everywhere.

Personally, the change pushed me to change hosts from one that was not working well (down several times a month and often slow) to one that supports CGI and also is extremely fast and to date has not been down once. I am dramatically changing parts of my website now that I have access to new tools like CGI, PHP, ASP, Htaccess and so on. I've moved all of my rings (except one left on RingSurf) to Ringlink and have tried out and reviewed as many of the other ring systems as I have had time for. I am in the process of setting up a new RingLink system for my wife's rings (finished this weekend perhaps) and have adopted and moved several abandoned rings.

The ring community has grown by leaps and bounds and has become, in my opinion, stronger and healthier since the day of destruction. I've read every post since that day, written dozens of articles and had extremely interesting discussions with dozens of wonderful people, all as a result of a very destructive act!

I've seen the Webringnews club, which was an incredibly useful and communicative group turn into an Orwellian hell, with postings and id's deleted by some arbitrary idiots who changed the rules in mid-stream because they didn't particularly like what people had to say.

I am sad to see a system utterly destroyed in a single day, a system which enabled wonderful communities to be created on the web by many kind and caring people. A new ring system has arisen from the ashes, a system which, to put it bluntly and frankly, sucks.

The new webring is inherently flawed and will never again be as glorious and wonderful as it was just a couple of short months ago. Oh, I am sure it will make Yahoo plenty of money, but it is, by design, hostile, sterile and barren. The people who modified webring should be ashamed of the destruction they have done, and of the pale, useless, idiotic shell of a system that they have put in it's place.

Of course, we should have (and many did) see it coming. After all, this is the company that destroyed GeoCities. I have many fond memories of that place which is now just a thin, pale version of it's former awesome glory.

Yahoo is the company which is notorious for not giving a hoot about people who submit sites to their directory ... after all, they do not make any money from those submissions. It is a crying shame that their directory has become so popular, as it is actually incredibly lame compared to others such as DMOZ. At least in DMOZ you can submit your site and have it reviewed and added within a reasonable amount of time. At least with DMOZ you can understand the submission criteria, and if you want, you can even join and become a "guide" yourself. What better way to be part of something than to be able to join it and give back something to the web community!

Personally, I am removing Yahoo! from my life. I have moved my rings (except for a "stub" of each, to be deleted Jan 1, 2001) and I am removing my sites from all rings which have decided to stay with Yahoo. I will not be part of this grand money-making scheme called Yahoo! any more.

Oh yes, what does 42 have to do with anything? Read Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and perhaps you will understand. Yahoo! reminds me of the Vogons and their new creation reminds me of hyperspace bypasses ... why do people need bypasses? Because they've got to have them...