![[Welcome Coffee]](../../writing/writingchat/images/welcome-coffee.jpg "Relax after the writing workshop with the Beverage of Your Choice")
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![[Carousel]](../../writing/writingchat/images/carousel2.jpg "Find your own favorite figure on the Carousel")
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You've survived the writing workshop. It's time to relax. Kick back with the Beverage of Your Choice, pick your favorite seat on the carousel or by the fire or create one in the garden... enjoy hanging out on the WritingChat list. And, as long as you're a member of the list
Welcome to the WritingChat Webring |
![[Pub]](../../writing/writingchat/images/bar.jpg "Find whatever you can imagine at the bar")
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The WritingChat Webring links the members -- past, present, intermittent, and in quantum flux -- of the WritingChat email list, a Virtual Hangout for writers After the Workshop.
|| What's a Webring? || How Do I Join the Ring? || Do I have to get a Yahoo ID? || What's Navigation Code? ||
What's a Webring?
A webring is a method of linking similar sites.
If you are a websurfer, you do not need to keep backtracking to a link page or search page to find the next site of interest: starting from any one site in a ring, you can click "next" to visit another site on the same subject -- or any of the links in a standard navigation box. The same set of navigation links is found on every site in the ring, so you can't get lost.
If you are a site owner, you do not have to maintain a list of links, adding, changing, and deleting everytime your friends move their sites around the web. Once you install the standardized webring links, webring.org will maintain the record of where those links point to. The network of sites you are linked to expands more and more, and you never have to update your link page!
If you want to know more (far, far more!) take a look at James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door.
How Do I Join the Ring?
The criteria for membership are:- You are or have been a member of the WritingChat email list.
- Your page is readable and accessible
- Loads at reasonable speed for most people on most modems.
- This usually means that the text, graphics, midis, applets and all put together amount to not over 70K -- 40K is better. Using WIDTH, HEIGHT and ALT tags on all images also speeds up page display.
- Is easily navigated.
- The webring code must be visible on the page you register with the webring, or clearly linked from there, with "webrings" in the name of the link. The page you register does not have to be the front page of your site.
- Is readable.
- If you have a slinky black gothic text on a twisty black and green background, it may be elegant and awesome, but it's not readable.
If you feel overwhelmed by all that -- apply anyway. Let me see your site and talk it over with you. Let's make the hangout grow, even if we have to knock down a few walls. :)
The next step will be filling out an application form. In the URL entry on this form, enter the page you will put the ring code on, or a page that is clearly linked from there, with "webrings" in the name of the link.
![[Webring Logo]](../../writing/writingchat/images/webring_logo.gif "FAQ about the New Webring system")
Yahoo! No more Yahoo!
After a 13 month experiment, Yahoo! has sold Webring to one of the original developers, and the Webring system is once more independent. If you haven't yet signed up with the new (and independent from Yahoo!) webring, you can do it at login. You probably want to use the same ID & password as you had with Yahoo Webring, to save yourself confusion. You can then associate your ring sites with your new ID so that you can edit and manage them in the future. Management of your rings and memberships is easier than ever; everything can be reached under one ID, unlike RingSurf. When you sign up for your ID, you don't have to enter all your personal information and get brand new spam, like on Yahoo. The new navbar is accessible by anyone, even those whose browsers don't use Javascript. Navbars "stacks" can be rearranged, split, and merged. Navbar code can be modified by ring owners to look highly individual. (See the Orson Scott Card webring code, or the Lord of the Rings code, as examples.) And did I mention you don't have to join Yahoo?
For more details on the new system, see James Huggins' FAQ.
Then What?
In order for your site to work as part of the webring, you must have navigation links so that visitors can get to the rest of the sites in the ring. If I accept your site into the ring, you will still be in "suspended" status until you have webring navigation code posted.
If you have already installed the Javascript code for the new Webring navbar, the bar for each new ring you join will appear on your page as soon as you are accepted.
If you need the Javascript code for the navbar:
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Sign in at Webring
- Click the link at the top for
"My Rings" and then Click the link in the left
column for "View Ring Sites"
OR - Use this link to go directly to "View Ring Sites": http://S.webring.com/mbr?p=ms
- Click the link at the top for
"My Rings" and then Click the link in the left
column for "View Ring Sites"
- Locate the name of the webring you need code for in your list of memberships
- Click the title of your site
- Click "Get Navigation Code"
- Your code will appear in a text box just below a sample of what your SSNB code should look like when installed.
- Copy the code and place it on your site.
Lynx (text-only) and some older graphic browsers, cannot use Javascript. This is the reason for the code between the <NOSCRIPT> and </NOSCRIPT> tags. That code will be executed by browsers that do not use Javascript, and provides a link to a page hosted at Webring that will display all your navbars.
Some people still prefer to use the all-HTML navbar. To get the HTML navbar, follow the above steps, but when you get to the page displaying the SSNB code, scroll to the bottom and click the word "here" at the end of the sentence "Members who wish to use the HTML version of this nav bar should go here."
If you use the Javascript code, the navbar for each new webring you join will automagically appear in the "stack." So will any code updates. If you use the HTML form, you will have to manually insert the HTML navbar for each new ring, and manually make any updates.
There is a way to get the best of both worlds. At the end of the Javascript code is a <NOSCRIPT> tag. This tells the browser what to do if Javascript isn't working; it provides a link to a page hosted at Webring where your navbars will be displayed. Carefully insert your HTML code just before the </NOSCRIPT> tag. Then the automagically maintained navbar stack will appear for your visitors who use Javascript, a link to the Webring page with your navbars will appear for visitors who don't, andyour manually maintained HTML stack will appear for people who don't use Javascript and don't want to click an extra link.
The code is customized for your webpage. If your webpage address or any other site information (including your email address) changes, please update your entry! The magic of webring cannot work without your help.
Other Webring Help Links
James Huggins has absolutely the best, most up-to-date and readable information on webrings that there is. If you have any further questions, or you're just curious about webrings, I recommend his pages.