  SHOP AND/OR READ HERE:
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GENESSA -- HOW TO JOIN A WEBRING! First of all, do GENESSA a favor and click on the badge above to reach WebRing to join: Secondly, WebRing is not a directory, although it contains directories, and it's not a social club, although it certain has some sociable members with whom one can, well, socialize. Each WebRing is more or less like a community (in fact, WebRing, the organization, calls its WebRings "communities") but it's a community of webpages/websites. You can't join a WebRing with your lovely self; you must join it with your lovely webpage, be it part of a multipage site or just a page all on its own. So assuming you have a webpage, and assuming your webpage is about something, you now want to find a WebRing to join, either for people like you (e.g., a ring for young webmasters, a ring for members of a certain religion or political leaning or nationality -- a ring may, for example, accept any webpage on any topic as long as it is in a certain language) or, more likely, a ring for pages on a certain topic (a ring about dogs, a ring about computer geekiness, a ring about a certain celebrity or a certain concept). How do you find a ring to join? Either browse WebRing Directory (from the toolbar at the top of the page) or use the search line that's at the top of nearly every WebRing page. NOTE: Some of the illustrations of toolbars on this page have been compressed or divided into two parts so that they might fit on the page.  Once you have found a WebRing you and your page want to join, read the description to make sure this is the right ring for you... and that your page is the right page for the ring. Then read the join instructions, if any, to see if the WebRing manager has any rules beyond the usual (the usual being, you must own the page you're submitting and have access to it to put WebRing navigation code onto it, and you must actually PUT the WebRing navigation code onto it; and you must not have one-way navigation, about which more later). Some typical rules (this is by no means a complete list of possibilities) might be: no commercial sites (lots of WebRings do allow commercial sites), no hate speech (we can't imagine why a WebRing would allow hate speech), no WebRings or Links pages (we promised more about this and we shall keep our promise), websites in a particular language only (usually English, since WebRing is an American organization, although its membership is international and you will find pages in a lot of different languages), websites with a certain point of view only (this one is tricky; the ring manager has a lot of leeway but such stipulations must be reasonable), or websites must not have popup ads, broken links and graphics, etc. (They shouldn't anyway, but if you use a free hosting service, you may not have a lot of control over the ads; you can try to use the least obnoxious hosting service you can find, and you can certainly try to fix broken links and graphics.) The rings GENESSA manages all have join instructions. READ THEM.  Now you're ready to join a WebRing. In the upper righthand quadrant of the ring's hub page, click "Join This Community! Click Here!" (You may have to do so to see any join instructions anyway.) Give the ring your page's URL (if that URL is already registered with WebRing -- for example, you've submitted it to another WebRing already -- you will be able to select it from a drop-down menu; otherwise choose NEW URL from the drop down or, if there is no drop-down, just type the URL into the appropriate line), title (please don't put "untitled" or "home" -- give it a true, accurate title that gives the potential visitor a clue what your page is about and a reason to want to visit! If your page actually says "Home" or "Untitled," you may want to consider changing that!) and a description (nonsense letters don't cut it; neither does trying to put your whole page into the description box. SUMMARIZE!) On the next page you'll be asked to confirm the information from the previous page, and on the next, to verify (how is this different from confirming? Well, they print it up for you in a yellow box so you can see how it looks!) by clicking SUBMIT. Now a lot of people skip the next part and guess what? The end up being denied membership in any rings as a result. The next part is that you will be offered the navigation code to put on your page. If that very same page is already a member of another ring, or at least pending in one, you will not be offered the code again, because SSNB code, which is the javascript-based code used by most WebRing members, is site-specific. You only need that code once on each registered page. It will pick up every ring to which you belong, and you do not need to place it every time -- just the first time. Copy up that code and paste it onto your page! NOTE: If you have frames, your code may or may not pass, depending on where you put it. If you have tables, put the code after the last table. Do not put the code into a column into which it will not fit; the NavBar will be obscured, which is not acceptable. If you use Wordpress, you may have to use the HTML code instead of the SSNB, which is a bother (we'll get to that). If you use HTML you will need to put new code in for every ring, and keep an eye on the ring to make sure there have been no changes, since HTML will not reflect any changes (SSNB will). If you use Blogspot, the code fits nicely into a Gadget at the bottom of the page. Bottom line: you must have a functional, visible NavBar on your registered page! Now what do you do? You wait! The WebRing manager will receive notification that you have applied and/or check for new applications on his/her usual foray into WebRing to do a little management. S/he will check your page to make sure that your content matches that of the ring, that your code passes, that your navbar is functional and visible, that you don't have one-way navigation, and that you have followed any other guidelines or rules s/he has delineated. A week is a normal time to wait; if you find yourself waiting much longer for approval (or denial, or being put on hold, either way with a note explaining why and possibly what to do about it) then shoot the manager a nice email asking pretty please to have your application considered. In the event a ring is between managers, so to speak, Super-Users do prowl among the pending applications to help process them. If the ring to which you have applied has no manager and no one has processed your application, log in, then go to HELP (top toolbar) and initiated a support ticket and choose MY RING IS STILL PENDING/NOT LISTED IN RING from the drop-down menu entitled "Select problem area." If the ring has a manager who isn't replying to your email (again, give it some time) then choose "I'm having trouble contacting my ring manager." BACK TO WEBRINGS MANAGED BY GENESSA  |
Contact GENESSA:General email: How to Join a WebRingGENESSA's Generic Join InstructionsHow to Become a WebRing ManagerHow to Manage a WebRing WellAsking for HelpHow to Use WebRing's WebspaceEnjoying the Shoutbox1.0 vs. 2.0 MembershipThere will be more topics. Still writing! |
