General What's your opinion on bringing Webrings back?

[Senkusha]

I had a thought this morning. Back in the day, you know, the ancient times during the Old Wild West of the Internet, many forums utilized the Webring to advertise itself. What are your thoughts on bringing back the practice of a forums within a niche space using a webring?

Do you think that forum admins would be against the idea, fearing that it would drag away members to other sites? But on the flip side, several of the comments I've seen, especially on Reddit lately, people said they found multiple forums because of webrings. So maybe we should bring this tech back?

 

[Ravenfreak]

I wasn't online much when Webrings were popular. I say let's bring them back! Having another way to promote our forums is fine by me! Plus think of all the nostalgia both the webrings and forums will bring to those who were on the internet when they were popular.

 

[Num7]

Webrings were popular and useful before the rise of search engines and Google. Old search engines weren't as good as Google, so your chances of finding the good stuff were much lower.

With web rings, it was possible to find similar forums and sites to the ones you enjoyed. Your favorite forum is part of a web ring? Why not check out the other sites?

Web rings gave way to other platforms such as link directories, which eventually devolved into huge, cheap lists of websites and the like... Not as useful IMO.

The point is that it gave forums a level of visibility and reach that search engines couldn't possibly provide at the time. Even by today's standards, I don't think there's any harm in bringing back such rings. Especially at a time when many forums are on the brink of extinction.

 

[Cpvr]

I think it would be a really good idea and help forums grow. I see webrings are still popular with indie websites(neocities) and the concept could work quite well with forums as well.

Especially with search engines branching out to AI overviews and the like. Users would be able to discover forums that they like a lot easier without using search engines.

 

[2TonWaffle]

Do like the thought of forums within a similar niche joining together in a webring. Like the old say "what is old, is new again."

 

[InMyOpinion]

I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what Webrings are or how they would be helpful. Never heard about it until now.

 

[Senkusha]

I created a prototype webring TinyPortal block code to my site. I still have to figure out how to handle previous/next links, so for right now, it just lists all the site in the directory underneath the featured webpage. I have to do it manually this way, because I don't think there's any central host managing webrings anymore. What do you think?