It was a fun experiment. But experiments can end.
We've made the decision to obliterate the Lainchan web ring button collection as a primary page on our site. There will be a handful of sites from there that will be transferred into our Cellar Door. In particular, sites where the web admin has reached out to us or because their site is just that well maintained to the level where it's worth revisiting. Those who are still actively maintaining their listing (those very few of you) wish to remove us because of this decision. Respect to you.
Part of this is a "me" problem.
It takes a lot of time to actively update/check/maintain a giant list of servers that seems to almost change every week. We're not sure how letsdecentralize has the time, however mad respect the admins over there for doing their personalized lists. We describe this as a "me" problem because even though it's a few hours per month to maintain. Time is an amazingly precious thing! If we do update our site, we would rather maintain some of our blog articles than actively curate buttons and check sites to make sure they don't get domain-squatted on by some big-name web provider.
This isn't some slight against Lainchan either. Even though we participated in the thread that deals with web rings, we did read a lot of the other tech threads, finding it interesting what OS's people use as well as some of the hardware hacks that people do. Part of the concept of the webring was to constantly visit Lainchan for updates, which from an administrative point of view is a brilliant plan. We'll occasionally visit it after all of this, just not necessarily for the web rings thread. So kudos to the moderation team of Lainchan for keeping the place from devolving into Reaver territory.
The only real problem we had with Lainchan as a site (and we think newer people could be having this problem too) is that threads time out and expire, as is the nature of a Chan forum system. Thus, a new thread has to be made. We joined around part 8 of this thread. At the time of this posting, they are on part 13, and it's a bit difficult to go back in time unless you use the internet archive to assist. As history fragments, so does listing.
Part of this is a "Decentralization" problem.
Ultimately, freedom requires eternal vigilance to maintain such freedoms. Lainchan Webring offers absolute freedom to add lists to your site and maintain them as you please. This isn't without problems:
- If you were the one who started the listing, then you benefited the most because your website will be at the very top of the list. This is often the best-case scenario and even when those that joined the list early have their site taken down and because there's no active list cleanup. You're on this list. Forever.
- If you joined the web ring much later. You have to find out who actively maintains their website and updates their list with your site and who does not. This isn't to state that this is the only reason. Someone who actively maintains a website could check out some of my articles. Disagree with our views and simply not add or mention my site. Again, one of the gifts of freedom. But most of the time it's not just that. It's sheer negligence. Like their site was built and locked away in a time capsule never to be updated again.
- If you are very new to the web ring. Only others who are very new to the webring may add you. Leaving the vast majority that abandoned their website simply does nothing for you.
This leaves Lainchan's web ring movement with a lot of one-way streets. Although it's an unwritten rule, you're supposed to put the banners of every website, which may or may not respond with putting banners on their site. If at all! Because the requirements are to make a 240x60 banner and HTML address. Full stop.
The etiquette to reciprocate the action by offering a mirror in support of the movement was never a part of the rules. Perhaps by design never will be. We understand that listing websites is not an 'all or nothing' solution. Getting back to the "me" problem. It's just too much.
Without moderation, rot sets in.
The "Million Dollar Homepage" is a great example of having something static that loses its functionality due to software and server failure; Or general business financial failures of those buying in resulting in 404 errors. When the only function of a website is to provide links to other sites. Links that can easily fail because the internet is incredibly fragile. What value does a poorly maintained Webring page honestly have when there is no active maintenance and everyone copies bad lists? We guess the only thing left behind is similar to what you see on the Million Dollar Homepage. A mosaic of pictures (or in this case buttons) representing what once was. This is when the pain of nostalgia sets in.
Stay a while.... STAY FOREVER!
Even if we request to be removed from the list would require the administration to be removed from the list in the first place. While most will check and honor requests. Others will simply adhere to bad web administration and keep it on some copy/pasted list forever. We can't really control that. And honestly, don't want to!
Scaling error.
Just because a webring is big doesn't mean that a web ring is good. You can have thousands of different websites going, and if the majority of them are low-effort sites that just say the user's name and contact information. What is there to interact with beyond (sometimes) a guestbook that you throw penises into? This is akin to the "Geocities" free site problem, where it's just a static page saying 'under construction' multiplied a thousand-fold. Or sites that simply feel that a web ring isn't a community as much as it is another social grift to get free traffic for their SEO pump-and-dump site. All of this wears a person down on the ideology of the old internet. To those which have a single page with your name on it. Do better. Add a bio. Add some blog articles. Try to keep the 404 errors to a minimum.
Beyond "present day".
As mentioned earlier. We'll be consolidating things back underneath "Cellar Door". As the spirit of Cellar Door is absolute. It's a bunch of sites we respect because they are beautiful. Some of them don't even know we're linking to them. Some of them are our friends or people we talked with and share the common etiquette of sharing a link to this site on their server. A handful of maintainers from the Lainchan directory will probably be migrated over to this list and modified in our unique way.
Webrings that stay.
Furnation reborn's "FurRing" will stay because it has moderation, and it's reasonably small. Drop the forward/backward links off your page and risk getting removed yourself. It's rather simple that way.
Final Thoughts.
We would say that the community from the webring was a mixed bag. For as many cool people that we talked to host their content. There was an equal amount of hate comments that poured in as well. In some cases, ill-conceived comments like the following:
You're site is just a self-made shrine!
- Anonymous
Uhm.... yeah? Kind of the whole point of blogging. Were we supposed to do cool tricks for this individual? Or cater to their needs? If you want to feel special, give all of your information to Google, Facebook, Twitter(still dead naming your company Musk fuck you), or YouTube we guess? We don't fucking know!!! If we had all the answers to your boredom, don't you think we would take advantage of that knowledge and do something absolutely diabolical?
Yes.. Yes, we would!! Circling back to our core ethos! Don't trust anyone! Including this very site!
Look, at the end of the day, it's not personal! It's just a decision to end the experiment and to reallocate time for doing other things. To take the responsibility to announce that the experiment has ended. This doesn't mean that the concept of a webring is inherently bad. Each webring has its own unique rules of conduct for doing things. For whatever grains of salt it's worth for those still reading our nonsense. Join a smaller web ring that is very closely aligned with your interest. Because with the age of AI and search engine manipulation. Perhaps web rings will be the only thing left separating a site from humanity and being caught inside the blender of AI data mining.
Closing Lainchan, opening the next.
Also note: There's not really an opt-out policy on the Lainchan webring. And honestly, there's no reason to opt-out because:
- You are required to provide an address and a 240x60 banner image of your site.
- There are optional requests such as RSS feed and brief description of what your site is based on.
- A lot of the other optional requests deal with getting people started with their website in terms of content production.
So, no mention of propagation of the webring in general. Which is exactly what newer users are doing. When you stop becoming a community the ring is no longer a ring. Just 'the web'.
Muh backlinks!
There will be people who think by those removing links to our site, then the theoretical search engines will not view a site's importance. For starters. If you think linking to a person's site is just there to boost numbers, then kindly fuck off. We're glad you pressed that delete button. Secondly, this isn't our first rodeo. In truth. It isn't even relevant as to why we keep going on. The articles will continue to be published. Life goes on until it does not.
Historical snapshot.
We've kept our copy of the webring in archive status. If there is some outpouring response to preserve, we'll re-post. But out of respect for the others within the web ring. We shall keep it offline for now.
If you wish to get hold of us. Mastodon or Contact Us via e-mail still works. Comment locking this article.
Happy trails.
Server protect you.
Don't die.
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