Occasionally I have heard Fediversians talk about reviving #webRings. Web rings had some serious problems. No protocol for inclusion, no sense of how big they are, no anchor text (just click "next" and see what you get)…
What about a #RingWeb? The Ring Web is a web of web rings!
In 2019 I started my blog but knew nothing of the #IndieWeb or #SmallWeb. Thanks in large part to the awesome #Mastodon community I was introduced to these concepts and have been diving in ever since, adding IndieWeb capabilities to my site and exploring the Indie World in its entirety. To help introduce others to the IndieWeb as well as catalog useful/interesting things I encounter I decided to write a post about it.
So for some reason I just stumbled upon webrings and I think I'm in love :blobcathearteyes: :blog: :website: I'm finding so many blogs and following their RSS feeds.
#webrings, #distributionlists, #rss feeds, even fucking #IRC, all the old "before the net was captured into walled web 2.0 bullshit gardens" tech is coming back and this "I was there when USENET was THE thing kiddo" codger could. not. be. happier.
Some have gotten quite large. The Hotline Webring is close to 700 members. The Yesterweb Webring recently shut down because it got too large, past 800 members! Some of the people behind the larger Yesterweb community felt that the webring had gone too mainstream and become a venue for SEO and traffic-boosting rather than a chill network of friendly like-minded people.
At this point, webrings aren’t some dated concept that’s become tiny and niche. They’re quite mainstream outside of the commercial web.
#wordpress devs, how do and more importantly your readers feel about the wordpress toolbar?
I've had it hidden on https://sirtaptap.com for years to keep it clean, but the fediverse Friends plugin needs it (or some way to log in and add), and I've been thinking about adding more social features to the site like bbpress or buddypress, which would require signups.
It really doesn't waste a lot of space, so I guess I'm just worried about the WP version of the "Made in unity splashscreen" effect
It's #webrings baby. Let's bring 'em back. You can even follow mastodon stuff on 'em and do custom feeds I think, I'm just not sure how. Haven't dug that deep bc too few people I know run their own sites
Let's get it back to everyone having their own site. Own your shit. Webhosting is cheaper and better than ever.
The maintainer of #htmx is a too-on-twitter meme-lord. I give him shit for it, but it does look like he's having a good time, so I can't say I wouldn't be the same way if you gave me a modicum of fame.
If you're not familiar, Friends is basically fediverse #webrings. I approve. Easy to add on #wordpress sites with a few other fediverse things to give your site all the metadata it needs. Can do it in a few minutes.
Stop thinking of Twitter, TikTok, IG, (et al) as social media sites.
They are Content Refineries.
Like processed food manufacturers they take user content & extract the most addicting/engaging content. Brains eat it up but in an unhealthy “devour the whole bag of chips” way.
They make hyper-processed social media junk food.
Mastodon is more like a potluck. We're all bringing dishes. It's a mess. Kids are running all over. But we are, at least, real people sharing real things.
@ethanschoonover
the #fediverse really makes me feel like the pendulum is swinging back towards the #Internet that i grew up with, full of delicious #webrings and bespoke pages, and I'm here for it!