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submitted 3 months ago by mrpalmer16@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

Back in the day the best way to find cool sites when you were on a cool site was to click next in the webring. In this age of ailing search engines and confidently incorrect AI, it is time for the webring to make a comeback.

This person has given his the code to get started: Webring

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[-] bobdobberson@dobbs.town 42 points 3 months ago

@mrpalmer16 one of my favorite things back in the day was the old-school "StumbleUpon" which was like webrings on crack.

Unfortunately, advertising and profit-seeking happened.

[-] speeding_slug@feddit.nl 14 points 3 months ago

Ah man, those times were great. Bored? Just push the button and you'll see something new. No scrolling, just a new website with random interesting stuff to explore.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Old StumbleUpon was everything to me

[-] Jarix@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Wow i got hit right in the nostalgies thinking about StumbleUpon

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[-] marx2k@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Stumbleupon was great. I remember having a browser plug in for it. Then I stopped using it for a little while and never went back to it.

Does it still exist?

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Nope. Died like Digg and a bunch of others. There's a run down here (which I only quickly skimmed): https://productmint.com/what-happened-to-stumbleupon/

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[-] telmii_poo@jorts.horse 3 points 3 months ago

@bobdobberson @mrpalmer16 omg YES stumbleupon was incredible! I've asked around if people remember this and it seems that not a ton of people were on there.

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[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 36 points 3 months ago

I love this idea, the back button on browsers feels like it exists because of webrings

[-] superkret@feddit.org 14 points 3 months ago

It exists because web browsers used to not have tabs. Nowadays it's useless cause with modern scripted web pages you never properly get back to the site you left

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 3 months ago

then you're visiting websites that are badly coded

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[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 4 points 3 months ago
[-] superkret@feddit.org 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Then the entire browser becomes useless. I couldn't even post this comment without JavaScript.

Edit: I wish a search engine that only showed websites without JavaScript existed.

[-] Womble@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Umatrix is great, you can configure it to automatically allow first party javascript, and if sites still dont work eneable bits until they do them lock those settings so the same bits will be enabled next time you're on that site.

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[-] Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one 35 points 3 months ago

Gonna add my voice to those calling for a foss stumbleupon

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Yeah! StumbleUpon was cool. Something about how it tried to engender serendipity.

Such a pity that so many other good recommendation engines died or succumbed to enshittification.

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[-] antrosapien@lemmy.ml 29 points 3 months ago
[-] probablynaked@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Man I wanna like Kagi but I keep reading batshit things from its founder

[-] greyw0lv@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Be like him, but don't copy the batshit.

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[-] CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 months ago

Man what a trip, felt like I was hopping around the old web again.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 4 points 3 months ago

This is like the old StumbleUpon! Thanks for this!

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 20 points 3 months ago

The idea comes up again and again on the fediverse. It feels ripe for some app/platform to kinda nail it.

I’m not sure this is it or even something that does exactly the old web ring thing. I think a simple enough system for the human curation of web pages in a standardised way that can easily be consumed and aggregated would go a long way though. The fediverse feels like its close to something.

[-] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)
[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

That seems interesting!

In the end, I'm wondering if all the pieces are here on something like the fediverse but just need to be connected. I haven't thought about this at all until now (so I'm just riffing here) ... but the essence of such a system seems to me:

  1. Recommendations are human curated
  2. Recommendations come from a single human (or well defined collective)
  3. Reccommendations are organised in a navigable structure

Point 3 seems to be the unclear part. A "ring" is obviously a bunch of connections (not unlike a linked list). But other structures probably have a lot to provide here, especially if they're amenable to some basic search facility.

[-] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 3 months ago

You might be overthinking it, or I might be underthinking it.

When I hear "webring" I think of a simple list of sites, curated by the ring creator. And all members have a badge on their site, complete with a few nav buttons.

It was never broke, why fix it?

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[-] Adalast@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Aside from 3 you are essentially creating Stumble Upon.

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[-] clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago

Oh, man!! This looks so much like one of my old blogs!!! The layout, the colors! Brings back great memories.

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[-] kionite231@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago

There is also Gemini protocol!

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

I'm aware of it (and while not being super enthused about it, I can my personal interest growing over time as the internet keeps tracking the way it is).

But how does it help with a page recommendation system? Is there a strong culture of that sort of thing on Gemini?

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[-] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 3 months ago
[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

You gotta be down to know whats up.

[-] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 12 points 3 months ago

Stumbleupon was fun.

I miss old web shit.

Ninety zeros dot com was one of the Internet's weirdest best things.

[-] wetnoodle@sopuli.xyz 10 points 3 months ago

I'm in a few webrings! https://wetnoodle.org they're under the navigation menu towards the bottom

[-] LastoftheDinosaurs@reddthat.com 10 points 3 months ago

This is a great idea. I didn't see a Linux subway yet, but the process for requesting new lines seems pretty simple.

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

What would be really cool would be an open source, federated version of DMOZ

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[-] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Maia Arson Crimew, one of my favorite hackers, is in a webring https://maia.crimew.gay

[-] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Oh man that site looks just like the internet before it started to suck.

[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago

This is so cool!

[-] marcie@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 months ago

hexbear's trans comm just hooked into one! super cool

[-] fionnafire@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago

Neocities does this right?

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[-] LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

Couldn't agree more

[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I can't believe anyone did this. It's totally random (within pool of participants). There's a reason it went away. Is the equivalent of "I'm feeling lucky" but with a smaller pool. I guess I'd you like random it's fine I guess?

[-] Jarix@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

You didn't have a good experience with it, many of us did have some food experiences with it.

But it made going out on the Internet interesting. Today I'm not sure if its less or more risky to view a sketchy site, is it more risky now with ransom ware, data scraypers, and such.

Ide consider viruses to be less of a risk today, but my results probably vary

My experience was that those webrings often worth checking out if you didnt have something specific you were looking for today.

Its not the same at all, but theres a sense of my experience when i suddenly realize im on wikipedia and have opened 50+ tabs after I've finished what i was reading. Then just going through the tabs you have open

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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
386 points (98.7% liked)

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