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Welcome

These pages introduce the WebRing and invite you to consider adding your site to the ring, if you have a Quaker-related site that seems to fit. In these pages we specify the web-ring code, suggest web-design resources, and provide more information and links for exploring Quakerism and finding Friends elsewhere on the web.

Of course, the best way to understand the WebRing and how it works is to take a tour around it. You can start with the next site after this one, and then just take it from there. Eventually you should end up back at this page.

History

Tom Cunliffe established the Quaker WebRing in May, 1998, and later that year I (Kirk Wattles) became his assistant. We worked together in setting criteria for membership, helping people join the ring, etc. We accepted the commercial underpinnings of the web-ring concept -- advertising on pages used by web-ring site-owners and managers and in the "hub" pages, but not on the member sites themselves -- and saw the opportunity for Quaker-related websites and people who might want to "tour" our sites.

In the last several years, the WebRing set-up has gone through a series of changes. First, the web-ring company was bought by Geocities, which then was bought by Yahoo. Yahoo added a new layer of complexity -- automating processes and asking individuals to register with Yahoo in order to keep their sites on the ring -- but they were unable to profit from the web-ring idea, and in the fall of 2001 they sold the concept, software and lists of member-sites to a group of software engineers who had been involved from the early days.

For a fuller version of this story, see the Salon on-line article at:

    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/05/webring/

When Yahoo took over the Quaker WebRing, we asked what members wanted to do. Many chose to stay on. As of 2002, we've made it through, more or less intact, and we're hoping for long-term stability and growth under the current regime. We also have an offer from a web-ring member to run the web-ring from his server, if need be. Meanwhile, Tom has become busier with other responsibilities, and he has given me the job of web-ring management.

Description

This paragraph briefly describes the WebRing:

The Quaker WebRing links together sites with a Quaker (as in the Religious Society of Friends) interest. Sites joining the ring should be owned by people who are attenders or members at Quaker meetings. The themes of the sites could cover the Quaker movement, spirituality, peace issues, social action, history, Quaker businesses but always in the context of the Quaker movement.

Ring membership

In order to maintain connectivity and consistency in the experience of people taking the tour around the ring, we've learned there are other important considerations. These are more tacit and we've worked to clarify them over time.

Three criteria are important:

• Site navigability,
• HTML-competence, and
• A clear commitment in a site to Quakerism per se rather than to hybrid or catch-all categories.

In practical terms, the third criterion generally means that:

• The WebRing logo-and-links package goes on the *main* page of a site,
• The main page presents the site as "Quaker," in some way, and
• From anywhere on the site, visitors can easily make their back to the main page in order to move on to the next site around the ring.

We try to be flexible, depending on the structure and content of a site, and exceptions have been made on a case-by-case basis. You can see the results in touring the Quaker WebRing. We'll continue to work with anyone who sees his or her site as belonging on the ring, but the final decision will be made by the web-ring manager in consultation with others on the email list.

Also, we expect and ultimately require:

• Direct email contact with site owners
• Responsiveness -- i.e., site owners who can make adjustments in a timely manner

The WebRing company arranges to provide indirect contact among registered users, without us knowing one another's actual email addresses, but all too often this arrangement breaks down.

Quaker WebRing code page -