• WOMENSNET: Working Online for Change
  
• Take a Tour of Women's Sites
  
  Part 1
  Part 2
  Part 3

WebRings- A Different Way to Surf

As information deluges the internet, it has become harder to actually find information online. WWWomen began a women's search engine as a way to make it easier to find information about women, and to bring more exposure and focus to the work women are doing online.

Our search engine has been running for over 9 months. We have learned there are two types of visitors- researchers and surfers. Researchers are those looking for specific information on a topic. A search engine is definitely the best approach to find where this information might exist online. Far more of our visitors are surfers- they just want to see what type of information is out there. These visitors tend to browse through WWWomen's categories rather than search by keyword. We decided it would be an interesting alternative to offer our visitors a new way to browse or surf, and we began creating WebRing,.

A WebRing is a way to group sites with similar content by linking them in a circular fashion- a ring. Each featured site on the ring adds a small piece of HTML code to their featured page which tells the surfer who they are, and links to the next site on the ring, or to a random site. A surfer can be guided from one site to another and visit places they may never have found on their own. If you go all the way round the ring, you will end up on the first site again!

Some rings are very small and focused. Others are so large that it would take days for a surfer to make it all the way through, so surfers just tour sections of the ring. A surfer can leap on the ring at any point and can use the Random link to any participating site on the ring. The tour code will appear either at the top or, more likely, at the bottom of the page. The surfer will see the distinct, This WWWomen WebRing is owned by ... and the hotlinks to Click Here for the Next Site and Random Site.

WebRings are surfing alternatives, not searching alternatives. There are no means for you to know where you are going next (this is what many surfers enjoy!) and there is no way for you to leap to a selected member (unless you independently type their URL in your broswer and go there). But you do know the collection of sites are around a particular focus. Let's review some of the rings WWWomen sponsors.

WWWOMEN MAIN GUIDED TOUR.This is the original WWWomen WebRing guided tour. Its’ guidelines for entry are that the content of the site be exclusively or primarily geared towards women. It includes women's personal pages that reflect right on their webpage that it is a page by a woman. This is a large tour and can not be completely toured in less than 6 or 7 hours. It shows a wide range of sites for women, from more popular ones like WITI, Women'space (yes, this is a hotspot on the guided tour!), Women Leaders Online, Women's Connection, and NrrdGrrl to very unknown sites that have great content by women for women. You can check out the details of joining at
http://www.wwwomen.com/webring.shtml

WOMEN'S ART & ENTERTAINMENT. As we began to build the original tour, we saw we had a disproportionate number of sites about women musicians, actresses, and writers. We knew it was time for a second tour. Yes, this tour does contain some "babe" sites about famous actresses, but we felt we had to accept these to have sites about lesser known women actresses who needed the exposure. There are many, many women musicians and lots of poetry and literature by women writers. Oh- very important: this tour also includes women artists (as in painters, craft art, photography, etc).

Because this tour involves a lot of artwork and photographs of artists, be prepared to wait longer for each site to load. This type of content just takes longer. It is unlikely you'll complete the entire tour in one sitting. But that's incentive to come back again and again! Check out the details of joining at: http://www.wwwomen.com/webring_art.shtml

WOMEN'S BUSINESS WEBRING. This tour features business women on the web, both in corporations and in entrepreneurship. There are organizations to support business women, like the Association of Women in Computing, WOWFactor, Today's Arizona Women Success Magazine, The Canadian Business Women's Network, and Advancing Women, as well as women web designers and a variety of small women-owned businesses. This WebRing requires that either your content is obviously about business women or your webpage displays that you are a women-owned business on the page registered with the tour. There are more details on joining this WebRing at http://www.wwwomen.com/webring_biz.shtml

WOMEN'S SPORTS WEBRING. This is a relatively new WebRing tour for WWWomen because we felt it was important to highlight women in sports and athletic endeavors. There are women basketball sites, women's rugby, women in baseball and golf, women's hockey and soccer, and some more untraditional topics like women in race car driving and martial arts. This ring covers team sports, recreational sports and fitness. This is a small tour, because it is new, and is relatively easy to complete in one sitting. Sites are added all the time so no tour stays exactly the same. Joining details at

http://www.wwwomen.com/webring_sports.shtml

Limitations

WebRings do have limitations and are not a perfect surfing tool. Each member of the ring independently places the code on their web site. The web site owner may change the page, and not return the code properly or notify us. This will "break" the ring as surfers can go no further on the tour. A surfer can use Random link instead to find a working site. Even if we check the ring daily, we are unable to keep up with all the sites, particularly on the larger rings that have more than 100 on each!. When we do find broken links, we move them into a holding area. Sites are removed when we can no longer contact them or they are no longer appropriate for that ring.

Another limitation has resulted from the growing popularity of all kinds of WebRings, not just women's WebRings. Site owners, realizing it significantly increases traffic to their site, began placing multiple WebRings on a page (some have more than 10!). Some now move their multiple WebRings away from their content to a separate ring page (which defeats the purpose of the rings from the surfers' point of view). WWWomen's surfers began complaining in droves that it was too confusing and they didn't know where to click. WWWomen now have tighter guidelines for being accepted into our WebRings.

Advantages

What are the advantages? Well, we have already mentioned one for site owners. Participating in a WebRing brings traffic to a site. And it brings the right kind of traffic, people interested in the topic of the ring you have joined. Some of the participating sites on WWomen WebRings have received articles in newspapers because a reporter found them surfing one of our rings. For surfers, it brings a unique way to find unusual sites. It broadens the experience of websites by and for women.

Where is all this going? For WWWomen, we will grow other WebRings, probably ones that are smaller in focus and size to balance some of our larger ones. And we'll pick topics that match the levels of browsing activity we see in our search engine's categories. WebRings will not replace search engines or directories, mainly because rings are more for leisurely browsing than searching, but they are a very interesting and unique way to present a collection of content by targeted groupings. You can try any of the WWWomen tours at

http://www.wwwomen.com/tours.htm

Happy surfing!

Kathleen McMahon
kmcmahon@wwwomen.com
Co-Founder WWWomen
http://www.wwwomen.com/

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WomensNet is one of five networks run by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC)
http://www.igc.org
the nonprofit unionized Internet service provider that has been bringing computer networking tools to activists since 1986. Like the other IGC networks--PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet and LaborNet-- WomensNet supports activists by providing Internet access and networking services (listservs, electronic conferences), publishing services (Web, gopher, ftp sites, electronic databases), trainings and workshops for activists, and strategic and technical consulting. It also brings together a community of activists who contribute to WomensNet news and resources online and do outreach to one another among IGC's 15,000 politically involved and interested members.

You can get an idea of what IGC is working on by reading the latest issue of our newsletter, Net News
http://www.igc.org/igc/netnews/
Organizational members of WomensNet include the National Black Women's Health Project, Federally Employed Women, The Center for Young Women's Development, Women Against Gun Violence, Women's World Banking, Women in Multimedia, Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, and many others.

Background of WomensNet
The oldest IGC network, PeaceNet, began as a national bulletin board-style computer network for activists working on peace and justice issues and, by 1990, had joined with similar networks outside the U.S. to create the world-wide Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
http://www.apc.org
The APC now consists of 21 international member networks. It also serves as the primary telecommunications provider at UN conferences such as the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing.

WomensNet, the newest IGC network, was founded by Susan Mooney in 1995 to support feminist work, encourage women’s use of the Internet, and prepare for the Women's Conference in Beijing. As part of the APC's Womens Networking Support team, WomensNet provided the Internet infrastructure, ran trainings, set up information services online to share and discuss emerging documents at the Beijing conference--all to enhance the participation and clout of the women's organizations that attended.

The Web Site

The WomensNet Web site is a source of news, alerts, highlights, features and links to other important Web resources for women. WomensNet members can also read postings to member-only discussion groups from the site. Because the WomensNet homepage is part of the larger IGC site, it is a gateway to many other progressive resources: with the search function, you can find news, resources and community contacts on issues intimately entwined with women rights, from immigrant rights:
http://www.igc.apc.org/acon/
to the special needs of youth:
http://www.pacificnews.org/yo/
to strategies for activism online:
http://www.netaction.org/

The WomensNet site also has a unique and extensive collection of documents from the Beijing Conference:
http://www.igc.apc.org/beijing/beijing.html
including UN and NGO documents, transcripts of speeches, contemporaneous news and discussions posted by women attending the conference, and voice recordings of key activists at Beijing.

Networking and Publishing Tools

As a WomensNet member, you get a SLIP account and access to all the IGC networks and their news and discussion groups, including PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet and LaborNet. You also have access to the electronic conferences carried by other APC members.

Organizational members can use the entire gamut of IGC's Internet publishing services, from Web sites to listservs to electronic discussion groups--either for public participation by other IGC and APC activists, or restricted to a select group. Listservs can be attached to WomensNet discussion groups to widen participation to people with accounts at other Internet providers; for the WomensNet member, this means you can follow your listserv discussion through postings on our electronic bulletin board system, rather than have your email box overwhelmed with listserv mail.

For organizations creating more ambitious Web sites, WomensNet sets up searchable databases, creates password-protected areas for Web sites, and provides a secure server for accepting memberships and donations online.

For more information about WomensNet networking and publishing services, see our Products Page at
http://www.igc.apc.org/igc/services/

Global Work

Members of WomensNet also belong to the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the global partnership of nonprofit progressive computer networks of which IGC is the United States member. That means you can send email through the APC to other APC members, even if they are "off" the Internet--as many countries are, for example, in Central Africa. You can also request "feeds" of electronic news and discussion conferences from other APC networks, such as the conference on women in Latin America, which receives regular contributions from the networks in Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Columbia, and Mexico.

The Future

When we at WomensNet look at the future of online activism, the question is not so much, Where is the Internet going? but, Where are the movements to empower women going, and how can the Internet help?

Emerging technologies--for example, in the area of electronic conferencing over the Web, with audio, video and shared workspaces--will, as they become more affordable and easier to use, enhance the ability of women to organize, connect and work together across traditional geographical boundaries, but will not necessarily address the boundaries of class and language. The core needs of activists will remain: how to influence policy-makers and mobilize people, how to get support and collaboration from activists doing similar work, how to extend constituencies, how to get the information you need and get your word out--and perhaps most of all, how to best spend limited resources of time and money.

Ten years of supporting activist movements online gives IGC a wealth of experience to draw on. If these are your needs and interests, WomensNet can help. And you can help us by joining and building our online community of women working for change.

WomensNet is currently directed by
Maureen Mason mmason@igc.apc.org
WomensNet can be reached at:
Presidio Building 1012, First Floor
Torney Avenue, PO Box 29904
San Francisco, CA 94129-0904
Tel: 415-561-6100 Fax: 415-561-6101
E-Mail: womensnet@igc.apc.org
WWW: http://www.igc.org/womensnet/
You can join WomensNet by browsing to
http://www.igc.apc.org/igc/services/
or by telnetting to igc.org
and typing 'new' at the LOGIN prompt.

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Part 1 Winter 1997, volume 2 no.3
Part 2 Winter 1997, volume 2 no.3
Part 3 Winter 1997, volume 2 no.3
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