cohost support

if you're not a million years old, let me just explain what a webring was: it was a list of websites that linked to each other, and on each home page you could find  "this webpage is a member of the minidisc users club"

and you'd get little "previous" "next" and "random" buttons that would let you browse other member's websites.

nostalgia aside, i think a little group membership style thing would help people find the accounts and posters they're interested in. i've already seen numerous "are there any other photographers here?" "what about ham radio?" style posts, so i'm pretty sure there's a need

here is a rough sketch of how i imagine it would work:

• i start a group, i give it a name, and i am automatically a member
• i send out invites to other people to join the group, and other people can request to join the group too
• for any groups i am a member of, i can choose to show it on my profile page, under my avatar and bio
• perhaps most importantly, i can click "next/prev" and browse through a bunch of different member's cohost accounts, looking for fun chosts

there's some extra fingagling, if I click next to go to someone's page, but they haven't opted in to showing the ring, then i might be a bit stuck. it might be better to put a little banner at the top of the page when i'm actively clicking through members, like a ?from_ring=uuid,  so the menu is in the same place. i'm unsure.

it might be best to only go 'back/next' from members who opted in to having it on their profile, but the little menu bar at the top might be useful regardless.

what order should webrings show on your profile? is it per-user or is it alphabetical? or the order in which your joined them?

also, it might be difficult if there's twenty "photography" webrings. should the groups share the same namespace as account names? should they be free form text entries? again, i'm unsure

should it be possible to merge a webring? the answer is "no because someone will merge it into a lol you're owned webring"

as you can see, it isn't just a "lol get it done" feature, there is some planning to be done, but i do really like the idea

I think pinned posts are a great place to link out to other users you're in some sort of group with. They're basically just long, free-form profile sections, so I don't know that there really needs to be much more of a formal Feature than that. 

I would adore this! Yes please!!
Also seconding Nicholas idea about public and private webrings! [eggrings!]

For seeing a whole list of members within a webring, I suggest not showing posts, but instead showing profile pics and the username on a new floating window, and making it have numbered pages instead of endless scrolling! And I would suggest just having them in alphabetical order of the username.

I think moderation could get tricky, sure, but that's human nature, this is still a great idea worth exploring!

topic for consideration: what about joining multiple webrings? should there be a limit? plus members can join more? etc etc