How to make a JS-free webring?

[Daniele63]

Hi, I currently run a webring that has 100+ members in it, I originally inherited it from someone who decided to delete his website and pass on the webring to me, the widget he made is made in JavaScript, however I see the problem with relying with JavaScript, especially on old browsers.

So my question is, how do you make a webring code that doesn't rely on JS to be updated?
Other question is, is it practical to change it now when so many people already use the widget, should I even care?

If you want to check the code of the webring, it's available here.

[kurohaato]

Off the top of my head, you could theoretically make an JS-free webring by giving each user a direct link to the neighbors in their ring, like so:

Code

<a href="sitex.net"><- prev</a> <a href="sitez.cloud">next -></a>

That being said, it would involve an insane amount of communication on your part. You'd have to directly send the code to all 100+ sites, plus every time someone leaves the ring, you'd have to directly contact the two site admins before and after them. And there's no promise they'll actually update their sites. 

I'm not super familiar with optimizing sites for old browsers, could you explain some of the issues you're worried about?

[candycanearter07]

I mean, whats stopping you from just having the backlink go to your server and having it redirect based on a ?GET parameter? That seems like the easiest way to do that without JS, and would be easy enough to change around if you need.

[Daniele63]

Off the top of my head, you could theoretically make an JS-free webring by giving each user a direct link to the neighbors in their ring, like so:

Code

<a href="sitex.net"><- prev</a> <a href="sitez.cloud">next -></a>

Yes but that would be super unpractical, especially with websites that get deleted.

I'm not super familiar with optimizing sites for old browsers, could you explain some of the issues you're worried about?

Relying on JS makes it less compatible with very old browsers like IE or people who choose to disable it for security reasons.

I mean, whats stopping you from just having the backlink go to your server and having it redirect based on a ?GET parameter? That seems like the easiest way to do that without JS, and would be easy enough to change around if you need.

I don't understand, can you elaborate on that? What do you mean by the backlink and what language would that be written in? Any examples I can look at?

[paradigmatic]

however I see the problem with relying with JavaScript, especially on old browsers.

If you really want to support old browser, you should use a server-side approach. First web-ring did use Common Gateway Interface (CGI). If you dig around you may be able to find some old working code. But finding a webhosting that support CGI may be a bit more difficult.