Yahoo!^® Nothing to Cheer About.
by Rebecca Kemp (a.k.a. The Web Goddess)

Ok, would someone please tell Yahoo to get a clue?

They had a clue at one time. Yahoo is a search engine dating back to the early days of what most people remember the Internet to be, and should still be today - a free exchange of ideas and creative expression.

Yahoo is considered one the best Internet search sites on the Net. You can submit your website under a specific category and an actual human being will look at your site and make sure you and your site aren't full of crap. If you aren't full of crap, then they'll list your site - maybe - if they feel like it - in a year or two. This is actually a good way to maintain a search engine with some integrity. If you are searching for "kittens", you are sure to get sites with cats in it and not "Sorority Sex Kittens".

This is all well and good and in fact, their core element of being a relatively decent search engine still remains. However, Lucifer stepped in with a fist full of Benjamins and Yahoo saw great potential in making gobs of cash. Now, I'm all for making a buck or two and we all need to make a living. I understand that. We all understand that.

They started out by using paid banner advertising, which is mildly annoying, but we can all overlook it. Then they started charging $199.00 per site (non-refundable) if you wanted to submit your site to their search engine and actually be considered within a few days. Not accepted mind you, just considered. However, you can still opt to submit your site for free, wait for weeks, more likely months, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be accepted. Ok, so now it's getting really annoying, but it's still not in violation of anyone's creative rights.

Since its beginnings, Yahoo has expanded it's core purpose of being search engine. They now provide free e-mail, chats, clubs, and auctions. This is ok with me since they implemented their own version of these services from scratch. If you signed up for any of these services, you're getting exactly what you asked for.

Now comes their mortal sin and crime against creativity everywhere. Yahoo has recently bought from Webring.org their entire webring system. Lock, stock and barrel.

If you don't know what a webring is or wish to understand more about the webring system, click here. (This opens a small new window.)

What Yahoo has done is eliminate nearly 90% of any and all creativity from the webring system in favor of uniformity. They literally have assimilated all rings into one formal design. Why they have done this remains to be seen. I personally don't care what the reason is. I'm appalled that they dare take something as personal as the ring owner's ring, that he or she has literally put hours and sometimes years into developing, and change it into a uniform grey box. (See example below.) I can tell you as a ring owner of four different rings, this is not what I asked for when I signed up.

Here is an example of a "then" and "now" webring.

Here is an example of one of the rings I run, The Wildlife and Fantasy Ring. This is what it looked like when it was hosted by the now extinct, Webring.org. (note: the navigation links will not work here.)

This Wildlife and Fantasy Ring site is owned by Rebecca Kemp. [ Previous | Next | Random | List ] Managed by Becky's Wildlife and Fantasy Art Want to Join the Wildlife and Fantasy Ring?

Here is what the ring now looks like at Yahoo:

(I've since moved the ring to my own server. So it's back to the above version for me. More on that below.)

All rings will now look like this grey box if you remain in the Yahoo system. What a piece of crap! So now, the ring of Power Tools looks almost exactly like the ring of Breast Cancer Survivors. It's an absolute travesty.

To top it all off, they released the new system with enough bugs to make Bill Gate's software designers envious. Ring owners were cut off from their members. New members couldn't apply. The instructions are difficult to follow. Old members now need to sign up for a "Yahoo ID" (Greetings 7 of 9!) and must replace their old ring designs with the Borgish grey rectangles.

When did Yahoo forget that the Internet is all about free expression?

Do not despair. Resistance is not futile.

As usual, when something occurs on-line that upsets the masses, something else appears to appease us. Ring owners can leave the Yahoo system and run their own webring just like the old Webring.org way at Ring Surf. http://www.ringsurf.com/.

If members are going to have to change their ring codes anyway, they might as well keep the way the old ring looks.

If you're a ring owner and afraid that one day even Ring Surf will get swallowed up, you can opt to run your own webring from your own server! We here at Quantum Muse do that with our own webring, Drinkers With a Writing Problem*. If you wish to run your own ring system, download Gunnar's Ring Link at http://www.gunnar.cc/ringlink/. Want more options? Check out http://ringmgr.curio.org/

Finally, we here at Quantum Muse are taking a stand against "Yahoo of the Borg" and will not be party to any ring that uses Yahoo as their ring host. You can do the same by offering them the alternatives that I just mentioned.

Tell them you're a human being and not a grey rectangle with a ring number. Together we can all tell them to get a clue.

* If you are a writer, publisher, literary e-zine, bookstore, etc. with an on-line site, please join our webring! Any genre accepted! Join here!

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