Ringspace: a Proposal for the Human Web

Its gonna fail. Early web won because of simple protocols (telnet, ftp, http, rfinger, IRC, smtp, zmodem) without encryption. You could literally telnet / nc into port and DO stuff. Encryption destroyed the simplicity of the internet...

My silly opinion. Encryption is literyally only thing blocking retro computers from being usable forever... (And js)

i don't understand how this is supposed to be better than a regular webring.

I agree that there is a need for the real human to human interaction, but the best way to do that is to go outside where humans are, not try to develop secret human handshakes on the web.

It's all in the language. What is a ring? It is clearly a 2D geometry as there are just heads and tails, and no fan-in or fan-out. Adding thise mechanisms would lead to neurons which could start doing AI. GAWD FORBID!

Is this specifically to dissuade AI-generated content? The expectation is that I, a member of a ring, want to stay in good-standing with my peers and will not co-sign AI gen content? The whole thing is based on User-reputation? Assuming all of these, I guess I agree this works on small communities, but are small communities where everyone can already vouch for each other's writings really the communities complaining about GenAI content? I'm under the impression that the financial model prioritizes pushing GenAI to wider audiences. I don't (think) I see much GenAI on people's personal blog posts, because those just don't get circulated with the other "trending blog posts" from whatever your media feeds are. How does this really differ from seeing a post on the front page of HN and checking the comments to see if the top reply is calling out the author for GenAI? Isn't this that same 'user-vouched/user-policed' system?

> That scale is part of the design. Ringspace rings are not intended to be internet-scale

I don't think I understand...? The idea is something like an internet for only humans, on a significantly smaller scale? Didn't the scale of the internet arise due to demand for that scale? Is this something I would be expected to run on my own blog? Or is this more for social media sites to implement? Am I only allowed to be a member of one ring at a time?

> Webrings operated on good faith and mutual assurance that the members of the ring would create work that benefited all community members

I might be showing how young I am, but I'd assume this was the eventual downfall of webrings? The idea that ANYTHING on the internet can successfully operate on good faith. Humans operate on incentives, and where there is an incentive there is abuse.