Hello friends! In a recent thread some thoughts about webrings were shared that have been on my mind for awhile. Dont get me wrong, I think webrings are awesome but they do have some issues that often lead to some serious dysfunction and may not always be the best option for more casual webmasters (I mean me lol) who are not very savvy. I try to handcode most things on my site because I just find that fun and Im like bad at JS to be honest. I also like the idea of a list that is sort-of all encompassing: something like a simple directory.
I have been thinking to make a quiz-focused webring or directory since last year because I am quiz-crazy and I thought that for all us quiz junkies it would be fun to have a bit of a go-to place to check out some quizzes. In my opinion, the webring feature is more interactive and feels more communal. But a directory is easier to maintain and also not bad at all at getting people to check out more quiz-loving sites. So Iām not sure what I should go with.
In general, do you prefer directories or webrings? Or do you think they have their specific uses? Are they both similar enough for there to not be a real difference?
P.S. I think most webrings come with a directory anyway so not sure what exactly ābothā means but I felt it should be an option
Directory
Webring
Both
Secret 3rd thing (please dont David Lynch meā¦ elaborate..!!)
As someone who has done both, absolutely 100% a directory. I got SO burnt out on having to make sure the webring I managed remained functional that I had to pass it off to someone else.
To be frank I think webrings are overrated. Theyāre just links directories but worse, in that theyāre more fragile, and they give people less agency over how and where to explore.
I like that you can technically just keep going and going via webring but it often doesnt work out in practice. I find myself going to the host of the webring anyway and browsing the sites that way usually
I was never, ever tempted to click the next / previous links in a webring embed. Iād always go straight to the webringās pageā¦ and never, ever click on a link because theyāre all the same and I have no compelling reason to pick one.
It also bothers me that webrings demand reciprocity and a (semi)formal process. No, thanks. Iāll stick to directories and blogrolls.
I like web towns! I joined one recently called Netizen Town founded by one of my friends. I think it offers a good compromise between webrings and directories. Our town specifically has different neighborhoods for different themes and is invite-only with any member being able to invite someone independently. Itās better, I think, than an impersonal list of links (which I feel both webrings and directories fall victim to). And more fun too! Thereās much more personalty to it.
i totally forgot about web towns! they are the bomb!! i do think a webring/directory does really need a theme to work well, which is why i wanna make one about quizzes specifically and will only list quiz-makers and quiz-takers (and quizzes of course). a web town is a neat idea!
yeah I feel like I would also have some problems with the joining/adding process too, I have a pixel clique that usually runs fine as its a bit of a directory but ill sometimes have people join that forget to submit pixel art or even collect any pixel art associated with the clique so i remove them from the list with the option to re-list themselves later if they like but i think it would get overly complicated with a webring
while i do agree with everyone else that when i see a webring i typically go to the index instead of clicking next, i also feel like im much more likely to check something out if its called a webring over a directory since it feels more interestingā¦ but do what is easiest methinks!
Directories, every time. I agree with @Coyote, webrings are overrated. Theyāre just link directories, but worse. Theyāre fragile. What we call webrings today are webrings in name only (My glasses might be nostalgia fogged)
The ring navigation depends on every memberās site staying up, their embed code working, and someone actively maintaining the software.
One dead link breaks the chain.
A directory is just an honest list of links. Simpler to maintain, easier to contribute to, and more useful for web surfers who just want to find sites. For a quiz-focused niche, especially, a curated list is probably more useful than a ring. People want to find quizzes, not navigate a loop hoping it holds together.
Iād go with a directory
Background image aside, I love this appraoch - looks pretty fun
Something that I realised I REALLY didnāt like about webrings, was finding out that I have a link on my website that I didnāt control
I joined a wevring a little while back, and soon found the next member was not necessarily someone I wanted to be linked with. (Not politically objectionable or anything, but considering I have my site linked to my professional identity I am a bit pedantic about where my site links)
So I pulled out of the WebRing without explanation
I like directories that have good sortable/filter functions if they get big. Sometimes you are looking in the directory for a certain subcategory of the topic of interest. I also like to peruse what people have to say about themself/their site if they come with descriptions or previews etc. For quizzes it could be broken into categories of quiz types etc
i think a webring is more fun for this type of idea! you can play with the quizzes on a page and then finish and click to the next site to get more quizzes! thatās why i made the toybox webring a webring rather than a directory.
i think directories are better for large collections of links with a really broad or loose theme. like the neocreatives webring-turned-directory thatās just āpeople who do art of any kind on neocities,ā a directory makes more sense to me than a webring. as a web browser, i donāt want to browse through every person who makes any kind of art - i have particular tastes and interests and would much rather pick n choose within a subcategory of art thatās interesting to me than a completely random assortment.
by contrast the melonland surf ring feels like a showcase of the forum community - āhereās the variety of people who have been here!ā, so that makes sense to me as a webring even though itās very big and broad! (and i like the iframe browser )
i think a lot of webrings in the space at the moment are just fanlistings and donāt make a ton of sense as webrings specifically. im not sure why that is? maybe itās just bc webrings are the thing people are more familiar with?
i think if you want a listing for āpeople who like quizzes regardless of if they have quizzes on their site or notā a fanlisting would be best; if you want a collection of āpeople who have quizzes on their sitesā a webring would be best; if you want a really big collection of āall the online quizzes that are funā then a directory people can submit links to would be best. thatās my hot take!
a webring is definitely more of a commitment for the admin and for the people in it though, which is a downside. like folks have said, one broken link messes up the whole circle, and in my experience trying to browse webrings website-havers tend to change their urls, delete/reorganize their sites, move their webring widgets, etc without telling webring admins or members all the time.
in theory i prefer webrings a little bit because i want to browse websites with particular topic/theme focuses more than general-purpose personal sites (or blogs that sometimes once in a while mention a topic/themeā¦ sighā¦), and webrings would also be a great + fun way to put together things like pixel cliques and writing clubs and zinesā¦ but thatās just in theory! in practice thatās not how theyāre used, so i donāt have much of a preference
I suspect there are a large number of web rings which have more members than people who actually have browse them for many of those non-specific webrings you mentioned
Certainly the big pro that webrings have in their favor is that āwebringā is fun to say.
With that said, just because something is a link directory doesnāt mean you have to plainly call it āA Link Directory.ā For instance, if you look at pages like The Desert Links Compendium, Machine-Generated Garbage Hall of Shame, or Good Web Graveyard, youāll see that theyāre basically just a list of links, but in each case I chose to name them with words that are at least a little more thematic.
Anyway, Iāll also take this opportunity to share Sainthoodās post about Webring Pet Peeves:
The point of a webring is that itās a ring. If even one personās site goes down, then the whole thing breaks! The more people there are, the more sites you have to keep tabs on. A common issue I saw was webrings getting way too big. Too many people would join and then the ringmaster would have to close new member applications because they either couldnāt keep up with that much interest, or didnāt have the time/energy to go through >100 sites regularly to make sure the ring was still working.
One ring I saw, the Neocreatives Webring, was smart enough to transition from being a ring to a regular directory when the member count got too high, instead of just shutting down, but I canāt help but wonder why so many webrings werenāt just standard directories in the first place. Especially since a lot of them have very vague/general themes that attract a lot of people.
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