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WebRing, Inc. welcome message


From: contrib
Subject: WebRing, Inc. welcome message
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 08:11:53 -0800

Hello,

Those of us at WebRing would like to take this opportunity to say hello and 
welcome you "back" to WebRing.  We say "back" because it has been a long 
strange journey indeed since Starseed first took over operation of WebRing 
several years ago.

We won't take your time here to describe many of the things that have been, and 
will be, happening with WebRing.  We encourage you to read the current status 
page, and check it periodically, at http://dir.webring.com/h/status20011203 

We will *not* make a practice of sending you unsolicited emails.  It is not our 
intention to spam our users.  In the event of extraordinary developments we do 
feel it is prudent to contact you directly.  The final separation from Yahoo! 
is important enough to warrant this.

Let us summarize where we are and where we hope WebRing can be in the near 
future.

WebRing is once again independent of all parent organizations and is returning 
to the style of organization it used to be:  A community site largely devoted 
to assisting it's members, RingMasters, Site owners, and surfers, in enhancing 
*their* Internet experience.  For many this is a hobby, for others part of 
their business.  Whatever the reason you choose to participate in WebRing in 
particular we hope that we can continue to improve your experience.

In the near term our focus is, and has been, to facilitate the migration from 
Yahoo! to WebRing.  This has *not* been an easy process.  We knew it would not 
be due to restrictions required by Yahoo!, mainly imposed to protect the 
privacy and rights of individual users.  In this we agree completely with 
Yahoo!  Your privacy and rights are important to us as well.  Nevertheless, we 
have been inspired by the response from you.  See the bottom for some 
additional information on getting members to migrate.

In coming months we will begin initiatives in two main areas:  

We will be implementing features that users have been asking for for some time. 
 Some are old features you want to see restored, while some are new ideas we've 
gathered from support emails and other forums.

We will also be introducing features that we have been thinking about for years 
now but have never been allowed to develop.  We think these will greatly 
enhance you ability to promote your web site(s) and increase your traffic.  If 
you are doing this as a hobby then you should be able to interact with more 
people interested in the same topics.  If you are a commercial user then you 
shuld be able to expose your product or service to a larger, yet still focused, 
audience.


We would like to stress that WebRing is a community and we are doing our best 
to keep it that way.  We feel that the best way to grow and support the 
community is to work with you, the community, to ensure that your needs and 
wishes are the topmost priority.

In order to meet this objective we are asking, humbly, for your assistance and 
participation.  Basic system costs are not small:  Buying and operating many 
servers and paying for bandwidth is a monthly expense.  We're putting our 
effort and great deal of time into WebRing.  A small contribution from each 
member can give us the resources we need in order to improve support and allow 
us to improve the service we provide to you.  Here are some of the ways in 
which your contribution would be used:

- First, we'll give you back in promotion credit what you contribute to us:  We 
will credit your account with any contributions and allow you to use that 
credit to promote your Ring, Site or whatever else you would like to promote 
throughout the WebRing site.  Many of you run commercial sites and already pay 
to support/host your site.  Directly promoting your site and/or business on 
WebRing's pages is one way to improve the traffic to your Site or Ring.  Giving 
small sites, with limited budgets, an opportunity to advertise on a large site 
like WebRing is something most large sites won't consider, and can't accomodate.

We believe your promotions will have much greater appeal, at a lower cost, than 
the mass market banners, popups, popunders, etc. that are used by mainstream 
advertisers.  We'd like to see those mostly eliminated from WebRing, used 
sparingly to help keep costs down.

- Develop tools to allow you to directly benefit from any advertising revenues 
your Ring's pages produce.  We'll give you the ability to run promotions of 
your own, at a discounted rate to other advertisers, on your WebRing pages, 
directory and search pages, allowing you to keep any proceeds exceeding system 
costs.  In the meantime, if you have a client who would like to sponsor or 
advertise on your Ring let us know.  We'll help you out.

- Allow you to "un-advertise".  Many people would rather not be bothered with 
ads at all, and have no need or wish to promote their Sites/Rings further.  
We'll allow you to block either ads on your Ring's Hub page, or on any page you 
visit while logged in to WebRing.  You, in essence, can have an ad-free service 
without the hassle of operating your own.

- Promote WebRing on other parts of the Internet.  By pooling resources we can 
promote WebRing elsewhere and increase traffic accordingly.  We have already 
secured a sizeable promotional campaign which will begin shortly after the 
migration period ends.

- Continue enhancing the system.  Obviously, a better system is in everyone's 
interest, and will keep WebRing growing and bringing more content and traffic 
to you and other users.  All of the projects outlined above will be aided by 
support from the community; you.

- Pay for existing hardware and bandwidth, and add new as needed.  We have 
already spent more that $60,000 to ensure that we have adequate hardware and 
bandwidth to cover the first year of operation.  If WebRing grows as we believe 
it can, eventually we'll need more to continue.

- Continue to provide timely, personal support.  We have strived to respond to 
each and every request for assistance since the migration period started.  
Every one of the people involved is unpaid and works at another job to support 
themselves.  We think it would be in your best interest to have some paid help 
to ensure that you get the best, personal, care possible.

If you value WebRing as we do, and as many others who have already contributed 
do, 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 should ignore this 
request.  We'll still offer the best service and support whether you contribute 
or not.  That, to us, is what community means.  The amount you contribute is up 
to you, think of it terms of a magazine subscription perhaps.  You can use 
PayPal by following this link:

https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=webringinc%40yahoo.com&item_number=gnustep&item_name=WebRing+support&no_shipping=1&return=http%3A//dir.webring.com/h/thanks&cancel_return=http%3A//dir.webring.com/rw

Best wishes,

The WebRing Team

PS - Special section on migration.  While *many* members have migrated, a 
significant number have not.  Some choose not to, while others simply haven't 
bothered to OR have invalid email addresses and so have not heard.

If you belong to a Ring that has not migrated yet then the listed RingMaster on 
WebRing will be 'webring'.  You are encouraged to contact the RingMaster and 
ask them to migrate their Ring(s).  You can do this using the Contact 
RingMaster link on the Ring's hub page on the Yahoo! side.

If you are a RingMaster and would like to encourage your members to migrate 
then you should consider these two options:  First, you probably can email your 
members from the Yahoo side by going to the hub page of your Ring via 

http://edit.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=<your ring id>

In addition, if you have members that do not migrate before the Yahoo service 
shuts down they will still be able "migrate" after the fact as long as their 
Site is still in your Ring.  Once they create a user id they can either contact 
you (if you set your profile contact to allow it), or using a post-migration 
screen we will make available in January.  It is better to migrate now, of 
course, since they may belong to more than one Ring and migrating from Yahoo! 
transfers all data in one operation.




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