The 32bitCafe Webring?

Community Projects
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Is there a reason this doesn’t exist? It seems like a no brainer that we should have a webring for the Cafe.

(I hope it’s not to presumptuous to suggest as a <2 month old member)

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hehe also new and yes!

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I think this would be a great idea! I love the idea of being part of a webring, but it’s hard to find one my site actually fits.

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I am also a fan of this idea.

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I’m surprised there isn’t a directory for 32bit Cafe members’ websites.

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great question! we historically have stayed away from having a sort of “official” members list because we were dealing with some harassment and concern-trolling over people’s content on their website (not actual concerns of hateful/discriminatory/illegal content).

at this point, though, we think a member-led directory or webring would be the way to go since the baristas have our hands pretty full with different 32-bit cafe projects. someone needs to run it and seriously commit to keeping it up and maintaining it! (and we’d be happy to point our DNS toward whoever hosts it!)

we plan on being around for a long time which requires a bit of effort stretched over time rather than intense effort for a short period, but i know that kind of commitment can be a big deal to folks. last thing we want is someone to take up the task and then abandon it after 6 months.

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I’m not worried about being harassed myself, but if there was to be a member directory it should probably have a disclaimer along the lines of…

32bit Cafe is not responsible for the contents of its members’ personal websites. Some websites may be inappropriate for children and sensitive readers, or inappropriate for workplace viewing.

Then again…

While I have RSS feeds for several forum members’ websites, I’m not sure I feel comfortable stepping up and taking on responsibility for maintaining a directory myself.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

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I’ll be honest, I’m not really a fan of the idea. Mostly because I’m not sure what the requirements would be in order to have someone apply for a membership. It could have sites from users that don’t really do much in the community or just lurks

(I have nothing against people like that or anything, but I don’t really want a case where people join the community for the sake of being in the webring then never be seen again)

I’m also concerned about the commitment it’ll take too.

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I agree, we don’t want the list to grow outside of the actual community.

I suppose one option is to make the entry requirement contingent on getting some badge in the discourse (preferably one that takes a little while to get). I am not sure if the Discord server has any analogous badges

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I love the idea. So long as it’s not too complicated and involves things like “pushing” something and fiddling with bits of code. My head can’t get round those. Like the onion rings or Github things. Nope, I don’t get my hands dirty in those!

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i also have an rss!!

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That’s kinda not the point. I mean that if it’s really that easy to be a part of a community’s webring by virtue of just having a website and being in the forums, then almost anyone “outside” the community can do it.

I may have a forum account on Melonland forums, but I shouldn’t really be considered an “official” member just because I decided to introduced myself once in 2024 then never touched the community again. I want to avoid a situation where a webring becomes too much to handle and people just use it to boost their site’s SEO, missing the entire point of webring in the first place. Refer to Yesterweb’s ring shutdown reason as an example

This is also another reason why I’m completely opposed to the idea. Some people are a lot more comfortable in the Discord server despite not being completely active in the forums, which means if we’re ONLY taking the latter into consideration, the webring may potentially be alienating a large chunk of the community.

There isn’t any specific or less-tedious way to track how “active” someone has been in the platform like Discourse does. Sure, we can say the date they joined could be an indication, but that doesn’t really mean anything if they’ve been lurking for a while and haven’t said anything that warrants much response. You’ll have to MANUALLY search every single member’s name on the Discord server if you want any hope in doing that.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I rather not have a 32-Bit Cafe webring. It might be a good idea in theory, but in practice it might end up losing the plot and something to enter because it’s popular. Rather than be a meaningful list of the members that are actively making effort to be a part of 32-Bit

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I couldn’t find it. Do you have it linked somewhere on your website? Ideally, there should at least be something like the following in the <head> section of every page:

<link rel="alternate"
      type="application/rss+xml"
      title="RSS feed"
      href="/feed.xml" />

It would be handy if you linked to your feed on your home page, too.

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to be honest i’m resistant to the idea for a couple reasons…

1: i feel like if someone were wondering “what is the vibe of the 32-bit cafe?” they would not get an accurate sense of it at all by browsing through a list of 32-bit cafe regulars’s websites! the cafe is a social space distinct from our personal sites, and the rules & culture of the cafe itself do not apply to personal sites.

2: my impression of the cafe is less of a club that one joins and more of a place that one visits, if that makes sense? and that’s something i like a lot about it!
it’s fine if somebody just wants to pop in once in a while, and it’s also fine for somebody to just come to use the resources or participate in events but not the forum or whatever! it’s a space people can come to and enjoy in a lot of different ways.
having any kind of concrete distinction between “member” and “not member” feels uncomfortable to me personally, and a webring kind of requires something concrete.
i don’t want people to feel like they’re intruding or making a faux pas by just coming by to ask for help with a project, for example, or that there is a distinct “in-group” that they’re excluded from until they do XYZ tasks.
(while i don’t actually have anything against the type of forum that does have concrete ranks or activity checks or anything else along those lines, the cafe is not that type of community!)

3: the only thing we all have in common is that we have a website; the types of sites we have are wildly different from each other! & there are already plenty of directories & webrings that are just for Whoever Has A Website. so i’m not sure what it would really accomplish! a lot of the forum is already public to browse, including threads like the blog post share thread and the banner ads, so it’s already possible for people to find cafe user’s web sites.

4: related to above points, i’m particularly leery about the idea because of the cafe’s strict SFW-only policy and how that would clash with personal sites that have NSFW content! (like mine!)
if the 32-bit cafe is a SFW community and the webring is presented as a representation of the community, then there’s a conflict there i feel!

just my 2 cents! or 4 cents i suppose :P

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Damn. I think you may be right. Because i agree, a webring without any specificity is worse than nothing.

I don’t use discord so I don’t have any visibility into how active it is or how to track member “activity”.

And @xixxii raises some good points also.

Oh well, I have successfully been (un)convinced. A Web-ring probably doesn’t fit the goals

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Damn you brought up more concise points I didn’t also consider from my original point as well. I agree with everything you brought up, especially this;

Mostly because of that “in-group” phenomenon you were talking about earlier, which discourages a lot of new members from getting involved. It would also go against the Community Guidelines as well, if this ends up happening (even if it wasn’t “official”)

Yeah, the whole purpose of a webring in the first place was a way for internet users to find specific websites with a topic they were looking for, during a time where search engines weren’t even a thing. So it wouldn’t even be doing that.

I’m sorry that I keep trying to prod about this topic, I just have very strong feelings against large webrings with the only connection being the place they’re frequenting/choosing to be affliated with and nothing else.

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They say the devil is in the details…sometimes the Very Reasonable Reason Not to Do a Thing is in the details, too.

Y’all are convincing me I like the idea of a webring more than I might like the execution.

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No need to apologize! Finding out issues with a bad idea is better to happen before you start trying to implement it. And I think I agree with every point you made

Exactly haha

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I have nothing useful to contribute except that I appreciate being included in Starbreaker’s list further up in the thread.

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hell yeah man great idea