alt.hn

7/5/2026 at 6:46:07 PM

You need a webring

 https://shub.club/writings/2026/july/you-need-a-webring/

by forthwall

7/5/2026 at 7:55:19 PM

I prefer opening: https://github.com/lukehsiao/openring-rs

The main idea being that you don't actually need to coordinate a real ring of links to easily link to posts on other blogs that you like.

by lwhsiao

7/5/2026 at 7:58:05 PM

Not sure I get it. Why a "ring"? Why not just have a list of web-site URLs on a page and share that page with your friends and ask them to put that page somewhere on their site?

"Ring" means you are navigating linearly and circularly. Isn't it better to provide a list of links so users can choose where they want to go "next"?

And why should I have to go around the whole "ring" to get back to where I started from? The Web is based on hyperlinks, not "hyper-rings".

by galaxyLogic

7/5/2026 at 8:13:09 PM

It doesn't neccessarly have to be such a "ring" that you navigate from website #1 to website #2 and the order is always the same, and you cannot jump, or even do random browsing.

I think initially the idea was mainly around the "ring" concept, but relatively quickly lots of different implementations did lots of different things, and we still called those "webrings" even though many weren't conceptually "rings" at all, more like "lists of websites that are kind of somewhat about the same thing, sometimes". There was typically a "Random" button/link too, and index, sometimes categories and more.

It can be a list of websites, with random order, the main point is people's websites linking to other people's websites, in some way, that it could eventually circle back somehow, then you have a webring.

by embedding-shape

7/5/2026 at 8:29:03 PM

I think it's purely nostalgia from the early days of the web, from before search engines existed. The first webring came out in 1995! Over 30 years ago.

I think there was some sense of creating something to explore, where you didn't get to choose where to go next, there was more serendipity involved due to someone else's curation. No, it doesn't really make sense from a usability or practicality perspective, which is why despite OP, you don't really see them any more.

by antonvs

7/5/2026 at 8:14:21 PM

Yeah. This is it. #RollsOverRings

by tolerance

7/5/2026 at 7:59:10 PM

Kids these days...

by q3k

7/5/2026 at 8:05:43 PM

This is what will keep the web more human as we go forward into AI slop commercial web crap. Hand build your sites, talk about things your passionate about, share stories, art, things you make. And the web-ring connects you too others in the community with things you share similar interests in. This is what the web was for. Not everything needs to be about making money

by ravetcofx

7/5/2026 at 8:10:27 PM

> Not everything needs to be about making money

I feel like this is what keeps ruining things, in almost any hobby/sector/ecosystem I come across. Initially, as the only people interested in the thing is doing the thing because it's fun and interesting, everything works out great, people helping people because helping people is fun and the thing is fun.

After a while, somehow it starts to bring in money for some people, others start to see people earning money and then the money-optimizers eventually arrive, sucking all the fun out of the ecosystem since all they care about is money, money and money, and tons of more money-optimizers arrive after the initial batch made their success, and around we go until it's all commercial slop all over the place that drowns out all the authentic stuff that initially was almost everything in the community.

Seemingly non-profit groups with events held in actual venues where you can face-to-face show your disgust towards these people seem to be the only way of having communities that last for decades around a fun and interesting thing, anything online seems to fall victim to the above way too quickly.

by embedding-shape

7/5/2026 at 8:03:08 PM

And you need to stop telling everyone what we need! "You might be interested in this <thing> if you have this and that" sounds so much more reasonable.

by heikkilevanto

7/5/2026 at 7:08:49 PM

Using a Cloudflare Worker to implement a web 0.9 feature

by amenghra

7/5/2026 at 7:31:20 PM

Yeah seems overkill. Back in the day (1990s) you'd use a serverless script in the "Personal HomePage" language.

These days you could do this in client side JS, mayhe fetch the static list from a Gitgub blob or one of the sites in the group.

by hahahaa

7/5/2026 at 7:44:23 PM

Pardon, how do you do a serverless php page?

by loloquwowndueo

7/5/2026 at 7:57:31 PM

Well, shared hosts let you upload the PHP file via FTP (or secure FTP if lucky!) to ~/public_html and serve it without administering a server.

by hahahaa

7/5/2026 at 8:35:31 PM

That’s still running on a server.

(Sorry, I guess “serverless” is not a buzzword I’ll ever understand)

by loloquwowndueo

7/5/2026 at 7:31:26 PM

Why not. It's easy.

by hoppp