A Trip Down The Rabbit Hole!
Hello everyone, long time no see on this account. Today I bring you this post, a tribute to a now seemingly dead site(s). I had made this draft about a year ago, and realized today that the WSD Webring site no longer is up, and thankfully I took these screenshots. A lesson: nothing on the internet is forever. Archive things you love!!!
Done some digging around the internet and found the Watership Down WebRing once again. I'll be going through the websites linked on this website, and including quotes from the website. Incase it ever goes down!
"The Watership Down Webring was launched back in 1998, as a ring to link together as many Watership Related sites as possible. Since that time, new sites have come and some have gone (look in the Graveyard), but the ring always remained there. Sadly, it was abandoned sometime in 2001, with the original ring site disappearing soon afterwards. When Webring put up abandoned rings for adoption in October 2002, I took over the running of it. Since then it's been a bit of a rush to get a new site set up devoted to the ring, and the wonderful sites belonging to her members. I hope you all like it. A more detailed look at the turbulent life of the ring can be found on the history page."
It makes me sad how we've lost so much of the old internet. Since webring is down, trying to go to these websites does nothing.
It seems to not have been active past 2006 (as we can see here in the award section).
I'll include quotes from the website on them, and my own observations here and there.
Some info on the person who runs the WebRing: "Who are you? I am Terence Burridge, although I generally go under the name Entei-rah. I'm the ringmaster for the webring; basically the person responsible for keeping everything running smoothly on the ring."
Here is Entei-Rah's personal website as well!
"From my own observations, the peak of Watership Down activity on the net seemed to be around 2000/2001, with many large and great sites online at that time. Since then, many of the webmasters have disappeared, taking their sites with them. Sometimes this is due to other commitments, or sometimes it is due to hosts deciding to close down their free services and kick people out (I'm looking in your direction Homestead!).
The purpose of this page is to provide some links to some of the past members of the webring, along with what little information I have available. This would not have been possible without the invaluable resource that is archive.org, which preserves the sites as they used to appear.
I have tried to find as many of the sites as possible, however I am reliant on finding an outdated links page somewhere, and (more importantly) archive.org having crawled the page. If you know the address of any old webring member site, please let me know, and I'll try and track down any info I can."
Watershipdown.org (1999-2001)
"In it's day, this was the big Watership Down site on the net. It was ran by Edamoth, who also admined on the Watership Down Group for a while. After originally being hosted on a free account, it was moved to the pay domain, from which it finally disappeared. There were many reasons, some of which were explained on Edamoth's last appearance in the group back in 2002. Firstly, there were problems with the hosting, and then there was the fact that he simply doesn't have the time anymore. Whilst it was online, the site looked at many aspects of the Down, such as the society of the warrens, Language and Mythology"
"This site seemed to be one of many which disappeared as a result of the treatment by the free host Crosswinds. I've never had a chance to see the site in full, as sadly all that remains on the archive entry is the opening page and a 'back soon' page. Edamoth (watershipdown.org) spoke very highly of it though."
The WD-RPG Alliance (1999-2002)
"This one is kind of strange in that, officially, the server is still there, and the webmaster is still about on the Yahoo Group. Nowadays the alliance site has closed, with a link pointing to the Ahfernwort Warren RPG. Update: Come 2005, and the webmaster is back on the WD Scene with a new site - site 30 in the ring."
Looking into this one more, this website seemed to also be a roleplay group including other xenoficiton (Redwall, Animals of Farthing Wood, etc).
Watership Down! (2000-2001)
"A really well designed site. Although the majority of images on archive.org dont work as usual, theres loads of information about the books, film, the real place and (believe it or not) the TV Series. With such a wealth of information, it's a shame to have lost it. Well worth a look!"
The archive is a bit hard to navigate through, some pages coming up just blank
Watership Down Rulz (1999-19/4/2003)
"The most recent Watership Down webring site to enter 'The Graveyard'. After being neglected for a long time, the site finally disappeared in late April 2003. It wasn't a huge Watership Down site, but it's always a shame to have lost another member. It may still return, hence the ID is being kept open for a short while longer, although I remain doubtful."
Wayback machine is broken for this one, I've included the link that the webring led me too incase anyone wants to try cracking it open
And that was a trip through the webring, specifically the website links!