Ringmaster

Individuals looking to add their own homepage to a particular ring are, however, more or less at the mercy of the ringmaster, who often maintains a ring homepage listing its acceptance (or membership) policies and an index of its member sites.

Each of the member websites in a webring had a navigation area at the bottom of the page that had “next” and “previous” buttons directing surfers to other sites in the ring. […] People needed ringmasters because the number of sites aimed at women was exploding.