[kickscondor]

There was a small resurgence of webrings in last year:

Hotline Webring: https://hotlinewebring.club

XXIIVV Webring: https://webring.xxiivv.com

Weird Wide Webring: https://weirdwidewebring.net

I'm personally more into personal directories and blogrolls than these random clicks - but they still seem to be a good way to put together a small community. (And this post isn't meant to discourage you - but rather to encourage you to form your own.)

[livatlantis]

Oh I like the Hotline one especially! Easy to implement and some of the sites on there are very cool indeed. Thanks for these links.

[StavrosK]

Hmm, that's very useful information, thank you! Personal directories seem more useful and easier to put together, I think you're right.

[kickscondor]

Well then here are some little directories to inspire you! :)

* Edwin Wenink's 'etc' page: https://www.edwinwenink.xyz/etc/etc/

* Gabby Lord's: https://omglord.com

* Fingers.today: https://fingers.today

* Neonauticon: https://neonaut.neocities.org/directory/

* Gwern: https://www.gwern.net (the whole thing is a massive personal directory)

[marttt]

Great list. I would like to add UbuWeb, a massive collection of hard-to-find avant garde art, movies and texts. Curated by hand by Kenneth Goldsmith. Online since circa 1996 (and I think he has also more or less kept the original layout).

http://ubu.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Goldsmith

[StavrosK]

Thank you! These are all delightful.

[akavel]

Personally I also started longing for webrings recently; they seem more personal to me than directories, and there's more excitement of surprise and discovery. Also I think they're more "slow paced" and involved: you have to go through them one by one, whereas with directories you may look at the titles and already start making judgements based on the titles alone.

I think I'd say there's space for directories (again???) and there's space for webrings (again!). Though it kinda feels weird to me how Google removed the need for directories and webrings at a time (and I distinctly remember the relief), and now Google results got so crappy (destroyed by SEO?) that the need starts to come back :/ such that even I myself feel it.

[livatlantis]

I agree that webrings had a surprise factor, but like clicking on "surprise me" on https://wiby.me! (Or at least, that's the closest almost-analogous thing I use today).

Curlie (https://curlie.org/) is the closet I've found to a proper curated directory, and it's really quite good.

[StavrosK]

> now Google results got so crappy (destroyed by SEO?) that the need starts to come back

That is exactly my thought process. You can't get quality content on Google any more, it's all lowest-common-denominator paid content from huge content farms.