The halls of Webringnews were full of shouting, confused souls that day. For next few months all struggled with new rules, hoping beyond hope that kingdom of Webring could one day again be a happy place again.

The cries from populace reached new heights as it became clear that armies of mighty Y! were uncaring and, worse still, untrained and unwashed barbarians. The flaws in new Navbar became known, and basic change in fabric of universe was made abundantly clear.

You see, in days before conquest of Y!, ring fragments were created by Ringmasters to drive traffic to their sites and to ring member sites. The Navbar, through it's wicked magic spell, changed all of that. Now, all sites were connected to sacred city of Y!Webring, and that became center of entire universe.

Shortly after unveiling of sacred Navbar, mighty Bob decreed that all will agree with new Navbar. No longer would there be intelligent debate in halls of Webringnews. In fact, The Bob, who seemed to have an incredible amount of time on his hands, rewrote history of takeover by purging all old entries from Book Of Webringnews. The Bob declared that all was well and all happy (so there), and anyone who thought otherwise would just be purged and banned.

A vast migration from Y!Webring began, as ringmasters burned their villages and took their ringmembers elsewhere. Some moved to uncharted lands of RingSurf, while others fled to golden lands of Ringlink. The trickle soon turned into a river, and then a flood as people fled evils of Y!Webring.

Even mighty Bob could not stifle screams of agony from ringmasters. Finally, in an act of desperation, halls of Webringnews were burned to ground, utterly destroyed. New halls were opened in a futile attempt to restore order, but they all suffered same fate in end. Finally, Bob fled and was not seen again.

In a final act of desperation, an attempt was made to resurrect founding king of Webring, mythical Sage. A letter was carefully drafted with all of correct incantations, but it was to naught. The Sage had moved on to another plane, and was not interested in getting involved in wilds of Y!Webring.

Now, one year later, what is result? The roads of Internet are littered with ruins of once-mighty Webring. Broken rings abound, bits and pieces of ring fragments are everywhere, showing greatness that once was.

The new and wondrous Navbar is appearing everywhere, and it's true purpose has become clear. You see, it was all a plot to lower intelligence of internet user, and it has succeeded. The spell it has cast over Y!Webring is strong and cannot be defeated.

The land of RingSurf seems to be healthy and it's people prosperous, although ruler is missing. The wise and noble Sir James has become a collector of Navbars, with over 1,200 to his name! He continues to explore new kingdoms and has allied with rogue King Gunnar. Many of most talented and vocal ringmasters have joined arms with this man.

The only thing left to do is hope, and perhaps pray to whatever gods you believe in. Perhaps rogue knight, sir Gunnar, will have his way. Perhaps Sir Gunnar can lead us into a new golden age - age of Ringlink. An age where all beings are created equal and have a voice. Perhaps one day ... it will all be true.

In meantime, Sir Gunnar has released second era of Ringlink kingdom, which may attract a whole new flock of ringmasters. Perhaps, from ruins of Webring will emerge a new order. Only time will tell.

The best example of unethical moderators that I have ever witnessed was during a three or four month period starting in roughly August 2000 with a Yahoo Club known as WebRingNews. I found this club (a club is a kind of enhanced message board) and immediately thought I had found a great group of people. There were quite a few people posting their views about webrings, which was a topic in which I had an interest. The community was closely knit and virtually everyone enjoyed themselves.

At that time there was a rumor going around that Yahoo was going to change webring into a new and wonderful place. There were some vague letters supporting this - which naturally led to many discussions about ramifications and possibilities.

In September 2000 Yahoo destroyed webring, which caused Webringnews group to get very active. Everyone was extremely unhappy, because Yahoo implementation was, well, severely lacking (this is an understatement if I ever heard one). The conversations grew heated and anti-yahoo sentiment got high.

The moderators did not like this kind of behavior and began deleting posts without warning. They banned people who refused to bow to their demands to cease discussing alternatives to webring, and even went through ALL of old posts going back months, deleting each and every one. These moderators became shrill and totally desperate, until group finally fell apart.

This is perfect example of completely unethical behavior on part of message board moderators. Yes, on occasion a moderator may need to delete a post or two (especially in regards to spam), but it is completely wrong for mass deletions to occur. When moderators start banning people right and left, perhaps they should step down and let someone else hold reigns.

In fact, a good indicator of a moderator who is out ethics is a vast number of posts from moderator attempting to explain his actions, and a large number of posts from others (sometimes on other message boards) who have things to say against moderator. Note that sometimes this is not bad - a good moderator may have to ban or annoy someone once in a while.

The key indication is that topic of message board changes to protecting message board. In addition if moderators seem to be spending most of their time keeping out individuals and deleting posts, then perhaps they need to take a hard look at their ethics.

It's as simple as that. Good message boards almost run themselves, and effort required by moderator to keep it going smoothly and on-topic is minimal. Bad message boards require huge amounts of effort by moderators and become barren wastelands in short order. There are few things on internet that are more sad than a once-proud message board reduced to rubble by an incompetent or malicious moderator.