To get started, open a new browser window and go to WebRing. Log in and click on the "My rings" link. This should take you to a list of the ring(s) you manage (if not, click on "View Rings" in the left column). Clicking on the name of the ring you want to manage, takes you to the ring hub, but with a "Management Toolbar" added towards the top of the page (on some webrings it's in the left column). Let's have a look at the opportunities there:

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Manage Members

Here you can suspend and activate sites and check their status. This is the place where many ringmasters waste lots and lots of time, but if you set the auto-management preferences at the bottom of this page correctly, you might never have to visit this page again!

Auto-Management: Sites with broken navigation bar are automatically suspended and those with working navigation bar are automatically activated.: Keep this selected. It means WebRing keeps track of which sites actually has a valid ring code.
Auto-Management: Suspended sites are automatically deleted if they remain suspended for a period exceeding the same limit as new submissions, AND new submission auto-expire is selected.

Process New Sites

On this page you get a list of sites that have applied for membership. Take a look at the site and approve or deny them.

I suggest you set the auto-expiration time to 30 days. Sites you haven't managed to look at within that time period are probably tired of it all anyway. (Probably a bit mad at you too: promise yourself you'll do better in the future. ;-)

If you have set up your ring correctly, this is where you'll do most of your ring administration work.

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Email Ring Members

Don't overdo this!!!

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Invite Others

Lets you send a standardized email message to any webmasters you'd like to invite to join the ring.

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Global Settings

Ring description and keywords: Fill in whatever you think is appropriate.
Ring Home Page: Have you made your own special home page for the webring? If so add it here. If that page itself is included in the ring (important note: this should not be you ordinary web site, but a page specially dedicated to info about the ring itself!) you just enter the site id, if not, enter the page's URL.
Meetup topic: Sorry, don't really know what this is about - never used it myself.
Helpers: List ring members that are given administrative powers for the ring.

The rest of the options shouldn't need much explanation I guess.

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Join Settings

Use Home Page/Use Join Page: WebRing has a standard page for people who wants to join a webring. If you have entered a ring home page URL on the Global Settings page, you can choose that they are sent there instead. Use this only if the home page really contains some useful information for applicants.
Announcement email: You definitely want to keep this one on. If not, you'll have to constantly go to WebRing to see if anybody has applied for a ring membership.
Open/closed ring: Do you want new members to the ring or not?
Message to applicants: Whatever you like, or just keep it blank. If you're going to write a lot here, it might be a better idea to create a page yourself and use the "Use HomePage" function above.
Active/conditional: Keep this on "conditional" unless you want a broken ring and/or lots of extra work.
Front/rear: Does it really matter? I don't know.
Application instructions: Fill in whatever you think is relevant. As with the applicant message: if you're going to write a lot here, you might as well use your own webring home page instead.
Application email: Customize the template for the email sent to aplicants. You can do this one the Customize Emails page too.

Customize Emails

Here you can customize the email templates and also decide whether you want copies yourself of email messages WebRing sends to ring members on your behalf.
Use the checkboxes to choose which emails you want a copy of (you probably want all) and click on the template names to modify them.

If you want to modify the templates, you should be careful not to mess up the WebRing email tags (such as --ringtitle--).

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Edit Ring Logo

Use this if you want to add a logo to the ring hub page. If you want to add a logo to the navigation bar you can do that on the Navigation Code page.

Note that WebRing has a limit of 25 KB for images uploaded to their site. In my opinion that is way to high. Remember that a big logo takes time to load, and the visitor won't be happy about it. Besides, the logo has to fit into the left column of the page, so it shouldn't be more than - say 150 pixels - wide and preferably not more than 200 pixel high.

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Navigation Code

Here you can choose how the navigation bar (the small banner that appears on the ring member's sites) should look.

Navbar logo: This lets you add a small (50x50 pixels) graphic to the navigation bar. (Note, this is for the navigation bar only. See Edit Ring Logo if you want to add a logo to the hub page.
Ring Colors: Set the background and border color for the navigation bar. Not many choices here, but that may be just as well.
Show a link to my profile on the navbar: Select this if - and only if - you have added a proper message to your WebRing profile (you can do that by clicking on "Account info" at the top of any WebRing window).
Advanced users may wish to directly edit the navigation code.: If you're that advanced, you don't need my advice. If not, stay away from this one.

The example navigation bar at the bottom of the page shows how it is before you made any changes. Click finished and then find your way back to the "Navigation Code" page to see how the new result looks.

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Color Scheme

This allows you to set the colour scheme for the ring hub page, not for the navigation bar (you can do that in the Navigation Code page).

You can also choose the navigation icons here. Personally I prefer those thumbs, but it's up to you.

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Title Change

Don't use this unless you have a very good reason.

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Ring Order

This page lets you define in which order the sites in the ring should appear.

Automatic rearrange: It's up to you, but I suggest you keep it on. WebRing will then shuffle the order of the sites every now and then, making the site fresher and more interesting for surfers, and evening out the exposure between the sites. If you absolutely want some sites to appear on top all the time, you can use the Featured sites function.
Current arrangement: Show the present ordering of the site. Use the arrow buttons to manually rearrange. I suggest you leave this one. It's far too much needless work.
Rearrange method: I suggest you choose either "Alternating Traffic Size" or "Random." These two keep the ring more exciting for surfers and are also the ones most fair to the sites.

Ring Poll

If you want to, you can add a poll to the ring hub. There's a standard poll asking people what they think about the ring, but you can also create your own poll with any question and any options you like here.

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Featured Sites

This is one of the most overlooked WebRing functions. It allows you to choose up to three sites that are featured on the ring's hub page - that is, they are always listed on top of the page.

You can either give away these featured spots for free, you can sell them to ring members, thus actually making some money as a ringmaster. You can combine free and paid listings too if you like.

Note, if you choose to go for the paid option, select a fee much higher than WebRing's suggested $1.20. A featrued spot on the hub page is worth much more than that - if it's worth anything at all.

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