Open Letter to Sage Weil

Dear Sage Weil

I'm taking the courage to write to you. While I do this with trepidation, I have today collected all my courage to do so. Firstly, I need to set this letter in context.

Your name is strongly connected to Web Rings. You may have sold your venture to Starseed some years ago, but around the virtual worldwide community, it is your name, which still deservedly receives a central place and considerable acclaim, and this not without reason.

Whatever one may think about Web Rings, central to the concept is a sense of community. Captured within the essence of your brainchild, born in virtual space, is the creation of global communities, of people, linked together, and linking themselves together, around mutual interests of one kind or another, linking themselves to or with causes, interests, hobbies, protests, loves and likes, trauma's or victories.

It is also this idea of community, the sense of community, which was from the onset of Web Rings its guarantee to success. It has created an atmosphere of familiarity, creativity, uniqueness and drive amongst the worldwide users of Web Rings, a sense of bonding, friendship, common purpose and volunteerism, and a spirit of oneness and openness which is beyond borders and boundaries.

Webring.Org had its weaknesses, but no major disturbance was entering the world of this creation, so even after you offered your brainchild up to the unknown world of virtual space, she was to grow up and survive, without major hurdles or accident or injury.

Until September 5, 2000. On this day Yahoo!Webring entered the world of these independently linked websites across the globe, by that time encompassing around 1.25 million web sites - and this is merely an estimate.

The first reaction was caution. We, as RingMasters, did not know what to expect. There was talk of a "Server Side Navigation Bar" eliminating the need for Ring members to install the html fragment, thus avoiding all complications connected to people copying and pasting html, often with little or no prior experience in editing HyperText Markup Language.

From the onset there was a great deal of clarity about the need for a Yahoo! ID for those members needing to edit their Site details. That in itself raised doubts amongst the Webring community. There is considerable fear amongst the internet community about issues related to privacy and confidentiality in a world where the push for increasingly effective and aggressive target advertising is a growing need for companies who want to claim both visibility, hit rates and profit.

Some RingMasters could show with poll results, conducted amongst their members, that this fear led to a loss of members of their Rings. That was the initial vote-by-feet of Ring members.

Then the Server Side Navigation Bar, the Navbar, appeared. We looked at it, turned it over, smelled it, turned it inside out, upside down, didn't like the look of it, stressed its design envelope, watched it being served, and talked about it. And slowly some non-negotiable elements were becoming clear.

One of the RingMasters, who placed himself in a vocal way amongst those in the front line, James S. Huggins, a Consultant from Dallas (TX), declared that he would explore the Navbar by joining as many Web Rings as possible in an attempt to take Yahoo!WebRing's serving capacity to the limit. He did this on a special section of his personal Web Site.

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/rng1/wazillion_navbars_project.htm

James went on. He asked for answers through various Clubs. He was not the only one. Before its mysterious closure just three days ago, WebRingNews, formerly the "Official" WebRing information Club for Ringmasters, moderated by Bob Marion, counted 2731 members. In September WebRingNews transformed and was now the Official Yahoo!Webring Forum. Between that period and three days ago, thousands of posts by Ringmasters were deleted, scored of angry Ringmasters were banned from the Club, and the Club closed, after many RingMasters moved elsewhere.

James S. Huggins, in his quest for answers, listed his problems with the Navbar and other related issues on his Site as well, dedicating a special page to this: 

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/rng1/wnp_problem_list.htm

With the assistance of the RingMasters Community, discussing the issues on WebRingNews and other forums, James identified 108 problems with the Yahoo!WebRing system. While some of these issues are now resolved and problems solved, many either stubbornly return as major 'glitches' in the system, or as unexplained items, even though the RingMaster community has on several occasions indicated to those representing Yahoo!WebRing their grave concern with the problem.

It seems that Yahoo! is merrily steaming forward in it quest for an increase of the market share, meanwhile ignoring the Web Ring community's needs and wishes. No longer has a Ring a Home Page within the Yahoo!WebRing setup. It has been replaced by a Ring Hub, one of Yahoo!Webring's pages. It is no longer the RingMaster, who controls what really happens in the Ring. He cannot edit a Member's Site details. He no longer knows what the email address of the Member is. He no longer is, well, the actual RingMaster, but a "helper" of Yahoo!Webring.

It is no longer possible to have a Ring, where you can create an exquisite graphic to express the nature of your shared interest or passion, which gives impetus to the Ring creation process. The graphic, suitable for a Ring under Yahoo!Webring, is a tiny gif image, measuring 50 x 50 pixels. Served by Yahoo!WebRing, and embedded in the Navbar.

It is no longer possible to choose from the myriad colours, available though PC technology. Yahoo!WebRing offers the meager set of pastel colors, in line with its own meagerness in terms of colors.

It is no longer possible to "Go Home" for visitors, traveling a Ring. Home for the Yahoo!WebRing Rings is http://webring.yahoo.com/ and NOT the home of the RingMaster.

Many parody Navbars have been created by disgruntled Ringmasters. Sadly enough, they are not just parodies. They are serious indicators of discontent amongst the RingMaster community. Amongst the first ones created were Rings with titles like "WebRing is Broken", "Y!WR is Dying" etc. They were desperate attempts to mix humor, sarcasm and ridicule in the one vessel, mix them up, and then laugh, hope for the best, or move away from Yahoo!WebRing to explore the alternatives.

A little company http://www.ringsurf.com became one of those alternatives. Up till September 5, 2000, Ringsurf had struggled for two years to build its population to 2412 Rings. With the discontent rising immediately after the take-over, their number of Rings grew to 6372 on October 27, while the number of Sites increased from around 6500 to 47138 on that date.

WebRing is broken. My own site dealing with the disastrous take-over of WebRing.org by Yahoo!WebRing now counts five pages, and links to almost one hundred others involved in this disaster.

I thought you needed to know what happened to your child. Because although your sale of her to Starseed did set you free to act as you wished, it may not have taken away your love for her. If you still regard her as your child, she may need your help. Now she is broken, and soon she may be dying.

-- Jack H. Smit Western Australia October 29, 2000