------- start of forwarded message -------
From: Gleason Sackman <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: comp.internet.net-happenings
Subject: MISC> How to Run Rings 'Round the World Wide Web
Date: 20 May 1997 06:58:45 -0500
Organization: Global Internet, Peace of Mind is finally Online!
Lines: 129
Sender: [log in to unmask]
Approved: ralphie
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 16:20:14
From: John Walker <[log in to unmask]>
How to Run Rings 'Round the World Wide Web
By Margot Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 19 1997; Page F19
The Washington Post
http://
wp2.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1997-05/19/013R-051997-idx.html
Tired of traffic and strip malls along the highway? Get off and head
for the back roads.
Search engines, indexes, intelligent agents, "push" channels,
directories and guides aim to define, tame and sell the World Wide
Web's vast information resources. But when I'm stuck in an irrelevant
information jam or trying to get out of the "Business and Economy --
Companies" listings in Yahoo, I get an itch to start honking.
There's another way to travel the Internet: Circumnavigate. Take a
tour of an expanding number of topical sites linked together in a ring
around the Web.
A Web ring is a group of sites organized around content. Rings are
formed by the individual site creators and administered by a
"ringmaster." Each site displays its ring logo and a clickable link
to the next site in the ring. If you keep on going, you'll end up
where you started.
For example, if you're a mystery book buff, start out at the Crime
Ring home page. The first stop is the "Happy Hollister" home page,
from the children's series of the same name (it's also on the
Children's Literature Ring). Other stops on the 33-site trip include
the "Hard-Boiled Alphabetical Checklist"; the Ken Tanaka,
Asian-American detective page; my childhood favorite nurse-sleuth
Cherry Ames; and the Gumshoe site, offering mystery-related news.
A ring-guided Web tour will always lead to sites with relevant
subject matter. If your special interest is represented by a ring, you
can avoid endless lists of links and frustrating search engine
experiences. Adding your own site by joining an existing ring will
bring new visitors and an opportunity for greater exposure. And if
you have the time and motivation, you can start your own ring, too.
The Web ring universe is populated by diverse and often "alternative"
topics. There are scores of music rings, including jazz, gospel, rave,
tubas and groups from the Beatles to Marilyn Manson. The computer
underground of hackers and phreakers is well represented, but so are
Mormons, Republicans and, of course, "The Ring of the Nibelung."
In the ever more commercialized world of the Web, rings are notable
for their grass-roots origins. And the growth of the ring network
proves that the good old days of netizens, netiquette and
participatory democracy can still survive the Internet's commercial
"potential."
Right now there are more than 10,000 rings comprising more than
80,000 sites in the ring community, according to Sage Weil, the
creator of WebRing (www.webring.org), a free service that provides
the central Weblink database and a searchable RingWorld directory.
Weil, 19, started his linking service in 1995 after seeing an earlier
"unidirectional" ring called EUROPa in which each page was linked to
the next in the ring.
WebRing's innovation is its central server where the database of all
ring information resides; if an individual site in the path is down,
you can still move on to another. You can even pick a serendipitous
random link just for fun.
Weil, a student at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California, keeps
the server going and provides the bandwidth and connection. But the
rings are individually maintained and monitored. The system allows
people with minimal technical skills to add or join rings easily. "All
they have to do is put a snippet of HTML on their page and point to
the server," Weil said.
Each independent ring has its own rules for inclusion, usually
indicated on a ring's home page. For example, on the WWWomen WebRing
(www.wwwomen.com/webring.shtml), general sites about cancer are not
considered women's content but ovarian cancer is. On the WWW Pregnancy
Ring (www.fensende.com/ Users/swnymph/Ring.html), "militant" sites
concerning the circumcision issue are not accepted, but "mellow and
balanced" circumcision pages are considered.
Many ring managers exclude commercial sites unless the products are
deemed relevant. But several rings have been created for products and
services as well, like the Internet Cybermalls Ring and the Best
Health WebRing. You can locate them in the RingWorld directory.
What I've found on my ring tours is a variety of original and
interesting information contributed by a diverse, international and
community-minded group of individuals -- and many sites I would not
have found along the usual routes. It's a breath of fresh air.
Margot Williams's e-mail address is [log in to unmask]
PLACES TO GO
ExciteSeeing Tours (tours.excite.com) follow links on subect trips
around the Web. The Rail (www.therail.com) leads you on subject tracks
across the Internet. EUROPa (Expanding Unidirectional Ring Of Pages)
at http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/europa.html is the original ring -- but
watchout for dead links and roadblocks.
=A9 Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
-----------------------
Also in this issue:
- Malaysia Proposes World `Net Court
- Project: Cougar, W3C's next version of HTML
- System offers smarter searching
- LIFE IN CYBERSPACE / Life Is an Open Page for Curiosity Seekers
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