Web Rings--good idea, bad idea?

I don't know. How effective are they? Is there anything statistically about how they improve website traffic? There aren't any barriers to joining so there's no quality control right?

quality control depends upon the ring...

Should we be in a ring?

The food conference is, the chocoholics unite! topic in food is, the genx storybook is, and the genx conference probably will be...let the research coninue before we branch out more than that...

I have a poetry ring at my site (i don't own it) but we could submit the poetry topic to them, you think?

how does one go about starting their own ring?

ooh...that's a long answer, Wolf...

just give me a url and i'll take it from there *smile*

http://www.webring.org/ look around for something like join and/or start your own webring...

cool, thanks, probably try it tomorrow *smile*

okeedokee...

sorry to do this to ya buddy, but i'm way tired, my poor eyeballs are burning... so you have a good night, y'hear? (what it is, all this waiting around for replies, i do it the hard way, and staring at the screen just wears them retinas out!)

sweet and/or sweaty dreams!

Actually, our http://www.repeater.org website is on a webring.

wer: had nothing but nightmares :(

fun, isn't it...

guess what i did? no, not that, silly goose, i submitted my own webring, woohoo, now the hard part, creating all the junk that goes with it!

yeah, but I bet you did the other, also...

hmmmm......

just like I thought...

don't know what you created yours for, but did you know that this morning there were 601 rings with the keyword poetry?

uh-oh.....no, i didn't *lookin' at the floor with sad puppy dog eyes*

I guess that means there is now 602, hmm?

actually, it won't be listed until there are 5 sites in my ring...

(btw, tried to log in as wolf to no avail)

Log in to where, wolf?

onto the spring...or is this not the place where i do it?

and nick thinks he's computer illiterate *wink*

i'm not sure if i like the idea of spring conferences being part of a webring. at least not without fully informing the people who post there of that fact. to be honest, i'm concerned with the freedom that people without IDs have to roam through the conferences, reading whatever they like without ever being part of what's going on. perhaps there should be a few open conferences, just to show guests what it's like, but the rest requiring the person to be registered.

I disagree for one reason...it's free. If we paid a membership, or dues, or whatever, then I think that would be reasonable.

i can't agree. membership is membership whether it's paid for fiscally or not. we're paying in attention-span, rather than physical (or electronic :) money. we're in the "Attention Economy" area, as Wired so pointlessly term it.

also, having every conference open encourages lurking. we've already seen the massive amount of hits some places are getting (like 3000 a day or something, i think), and you yourself wer commented on how many of them must be lurking. all of the /public/* conference links encourage lurking, not participation.

terry's latest topic, how many people logged into the Spring today?, in porch about log-ins is actual log-ins of users... being a member doesn't seem to be discouraging lurkers, either...

and you and I, etc., are paying with participation, lurkers pay with attention, that's fine by me, they're paying as you put it and may very well participate when they feel comfortable...

web-ring links reduce the "worth" of this place, imo. it's no longer somewhere where people choose to go, even just through clicking a web-search link, it's just a turn up of the web-ring "random site" click-thru brigade.

but they also have option of picking it out of the index of sites for that ring...

I am still hunting one for Geo Conference. We had one all picked out and it was locked. I think, the more specific the conference subject the better it is to be linked. There are so many for general topics ( Books and Politics eg.) that they are impossible to wade through and it is easier to use a search engine.

ok, you're looking to do a webring for geo sites, right? you can create it for as specific as you like plus, on the submittal page, you tell folks the criteria they need to meet in order to be placed in the ring. i've been invited to join rings just by being listed in the webring directory! oh, and speaking of webrings, i've got an animal ring that i'll submit springark to.

We - he and I chose a perfect one for Geo and it was locked and accepting no new sites. Until I can consult about it with cfadm, I will hold off for a while longer. At some point we NEED to get one going, and I am still chekcing with webring.com frequently. When I get out of telnet I will email you and ask how you did it...ok?!

Still ringless. Not sure it is a good idea. Wolfie, and way to know how many hits on your conferences are the result of belonging to a webring?

..that should be...any way to know...? It still would be nice to have one for Geo, I think...! (going to bed before I mess up anything else!)