Getting to the groups on Flickr and DeviantArt and Returning to Your Ring

[Chicago Photography Group]

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Google decided to eliminate group descriptions and pages, after Flickr
decided to go nofollow. This, for reasons explained on the Flickr
group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/chicago_photography/discuss/72157624170656941/

meant that I had to continue linking from the Flickr group to a group
that was no longer reciprocating that link, and was no longer linked
to Webring, raising navigational issues that must now be addressed.


The Flickr group is here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/chicago_photography/


The Multiply Group is here:

http://chicagophotography.multiply.com/


The DeviantArt group is here:

http://chicagophotography.deviantart.com/



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[Chicago Photography Group]

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If you'd like to return to your ring, you can do so here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/chicago_photography/#ring




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[Chicago Photography Group]

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Alternative routes of return to your ring, which take you directly
back to the ssnb for the memberships for the Chicago Photography
group, can be found on Webring Webspace

http://webspace.webring.com/people/ac/chicago_illinois/forums/ring_return.html

and on 8m.com

http://chicago.photography.8m.com/forums/ring_return.html

If both of these are down, and Flickr is down, and you're really
determined to get back to one of the non-Webring.com rings to which
Chicago Photography belongs, you can also return through this page on
Multiply.com:

http://chicagophotography.multiply.com/links/item/2/




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[Chicago Photography Group]

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As for this group ...

In order to meet our obligations to Webring, now, we'd need to have a
clearly marked post containing these navigational links on every page
in the archives, because the Googlegroups team has chosen to be
difficult. This, by itself, would rule out the possibility of letting
people freely join this group, and this is not the only problem.

A few years ago, the word going around was that if one set one's
groups so that anybody could join, then the groups would become so
grossly insecure that nonmembers of the group could come in and give
themselves admin privileges, without the legitimate admins help in
this. That sounded to me more like a barely veiled threat from a
hacker engaging in a power to play than it did an honest warning about
a bug in the system - "run your groups according to our whims, or
we'll destroy them" - but there was no denying what I saw in the
record of administrative actions for one of my groups, in which were
listed changes carried out by somebody who wasn't even supposed to be
a member of the group. Google's security had been breached, and when
Google was contacted about this, Google would not deign to reply. To
this day, the company hasn't said a word on the issue, as far as I
know.

I can't ignore the fact that the company is ignoring major security
concerns about this product. For that reason, as well, activity has
shifted elsewhere, to the locations you see linked to, above, where, I
hope, they will be able to stay. The Flickr group is up to 1777
members and 41,661 items in the pool, this morning. The Multiply group
isn't doing much of anything, yet, but then, I haven't made much of an
effort to promote it, yet. One thing at a time. The DeviantArt group
is very small, but it is only about a day old, so that is to be
expected. As for this one, I think it will just be an announcement
list, something to help people find other content, as they wander
through the Googlegroups archives, which are still a popular place,
for now.




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