WebRing: status20011231

Welcome, Guest

New Initiatives

We have a number of projects in progress, and a number of projects recently completed that will be of interest to ring managers in particular. Here are some of the finished ones:

Conditional Approval - Find in Join Settings. If selected then when you approve a new submission it will be made active if the site is in either a Pass or Pass_L state, suspended otherwise.
Pass_L checker status - Read about it more in the help pages. We will soon allow ring managers to specify whether Pass_L is sufficient for approval in auto-mangement processing. Currently Pass_L is the equivalent of Pass.
SSNB "inactive" link - You may have noticed this appearing on some member pages. The inactive link looks like:

This site is a member of WebRing.
Find more at WebRing!.

The inactive link is there as a placeholder so that members, and ring managers, can know with a glance whether the SSNB code is installed and active. If the link shows then the SSNB code is either not correctly installed, or the site is not active.

These are just the most significant features. Others are nearly ready for release. The most important of these are:

Auto-management - This ready and merely waiting for the migration period to end.
Auto-rearrange - Also ready to start again after a 15 month absence.
Checker configuration - We want to allow ring managers more control over what is considered "Pass" and "Fail".
WebRing based "migration" page - Once the Yahoo migration shuts down we will make available a WebRing side migration tool that will allow members to associate existing sites in migrated rings with their WebRing User ID. This will allow members who failed to migrate, or were unable to migrate, to keep as many of their sites as possible. The page will have a lookup feature to allow users to find all sites using a URL as search input.
User ID lookup tool - Many members forget their User IDs. While this is normal, it does place a load on the support system. So, we'll have an ID lookup tool to help you recall your ID using URL, Email, etc.
Others outlined in the prior Status report are also still in progess.

Support and Help Pages

We have made progress, not as much as we would like of course, in adding to the Help System content. We'll continue in an effort to reduce the need for you to have to email and then wait for a response from us. While we will continue to try to respond quickly to each request in a very timely fashion the shear size of WebRing is daunting. Consider this: At it's current size of roughly 200,000 ring managers and site owners, and our ability to answer about 200 support requests a day (busy day) that means we can handle roughly one support request per member every three years! Clearly, the online help system is a must.

WebRing is a Community supported system

If you value WebRing and feel you can benefit from an even better system, then we ask for your assistance. If this does not appeal to you then you may ignore this request. We'll still offer the best service and support whether you contribute or not. Interested in supporting WebRing? Use

Visa/MasterCard/American Express/Discover

or use the link below to contribute using PayPal.

OR, if you prefer you can send a check or money order to:
WebRing Inc.
1257 Siskiyou Blvd, #1153
Ashland, OR 97520

The WebRing Team

Trouble List 12/23/01
Fixed List 12/03/01
The prior status page can be viewed here.

WHAT'S NEW