We won the war, have we lost the peace?

A war began in September of 2000. It was a vicious, no-holds-barred battle between David (Ring Masters) and Goliath (the "new and improved" Webring system). Virtually unknown outside the Webring community, the war went on for several years. It is uncertain if Goliath (Yahoo) even knew that it was one of the combatants, and if it did know, it is certain that it didn't care.

To those of us who took part, however, this war was important, even vital, and we shed many tears, as much from grief as from anger. Our community was ravaged by an uncaring, unthinking corporate monster; our lives were changed forever by the battles and the aftermath.

Well, I think we won the war, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Yahoo is no longer in the webring business, but the landscape has changed in ways that are not necessarily valuable to the internet and webring communities.

Huh? Look at how it was three years ago. Yahoo had destroyed webring, RingSurf was on autopilot and a shambles and Ringlink was barely taking off. Actually, in fact, everything looked pretty hopeless. I clearly remember the main question on everyone's mind was would rings survive at all? Was there even a future with Webrings of any type at all?

Compare it to today. Webring is an independent, thriving company which has actually, in spite of all, found a business model that works! They have created an awesome webring machine.

RingSurf is no longer on autopilot. It's obvious there are humans behind the servers! Wow. Who would have guessed this would happen back in the long period of shouting into the darkness?

Ringlink is thriving. I see Ringlink rings popping up everywhere. Ringlink rings are different - they seem to last longer and the ringmasters seem to be more involved.

Other alternate ring systems are appearing and are gaining acceptance everywhere.

The long, dark night that started when Starseed sold webring to GeoCities ended and we simply failed to see it.

The commercial ring services aren't interested because they need to focus on survival and, well, perhaps they understand that they won.

So what now? That's the question. We won the war. There were several victors and some losers. Webring, RingSurf and Ringlink are the clear winners.

Yet all is not well on the western front. Yes, Webring has created the perfect webring machine. Yet it is run as a commercial enterprise, in exactly the same manner as so many now deceased internet companies famous during the "bubble" of the early 2000's. Webring is totally dependent upon advertising, which many have learned the hard way is not always the most stable of sources of income.

In my opinion, webring is the most simple system to use. It's a webring engine, actually it's an awesome creation. The entire "machine" is designed to make it so simple to create webrings that anyone, even a child, can do it. The people who created the new webring obviously know exactly what a webring is supposed to do, how it operates and how to make it work. I think they've created the virtually perfect webring machine. So perfect, in fact, that the machine barely needs human beings at all. Actually, I've seen a few features added lately which appear to be intended to make the machine more difficult to run on autopilot - attempts to get ringmasters and ringmembers more involved, perhaps?

The basic and most severe problem with the Webring implementation at Webring.Org is the use of JavaScript, server-side fragments. This is a huge security risk for web sites, in that ill-intentioned ring masters can easily push materials to the web pages of ring members which is not desired without authorization.

Using Ringlink is very simple. I prefer Ringlink over the other two because the "cost of ownership" is lower (I don't have to put up with ads and other nonsense) and I have more control. Yet Ringlink has the disadvantage of being decentralized, which means individual ringmasters generally must host their own rings. This is too complicated for most to attempt.

I find the new RingSurf to be a work-in-progress. It has much potential, and it is certainly better now that someone is at the helm. RingSurf is very much in the style of the old pre-Yahoo webring system, and it is far more agreeable to those ringmasters who want to make a long-term commitment to their rings.

Bravenet's rings tend to be so lost in their offerings that they simply do not exist in most people's minds. However, Bravenet rings are virtually duplicates of the old-style Webrings and will work well for just about anyone. Just don't expect to receive any traffic from the central hub (Bravenet).

Now, for the purpose of creating a community, Ringlink wins hands down without even working up a sweat. In fact, Webring, due to it's extraordinary ease of use, doesn't even work to build communities. I think with webring, the "good", well-managed rings tend to get lost in the mass of unmanaged, tiny, itty-bitty rings.

Most of the well managed, large, community-type rings that I've seen are either on RingSurf or Ringlink. I suspect it's because of the lack of extreme automation - you have to do more, so you tend to be more involved.