WR Users Guide

Membership Transfers

Did you know that all members have the ability to transfer a membership between two IDs? Ok, you knew that, but do you know how to do it? Ha ha, that's what I thought, because most everyone else answers that way, too.

Part of the confusion stems from the term "transfer password", which is so often misunderstood to be the regular login password. If you step back a moment and think about it, it wouldn't make sense to use your login password to transfer a membership. Remember, any user can transfer a membership to any other user. You wouldn't want another person having your login password, thus a special, separate transfer password is established for the movement of memberships between accounts.

Since the transfer password is designed to be shared, you also want to change it after it is used by another member, lest he transfer more memberships to your account than you care to have or post it for others to do. However, more often than not, you'll be using this transfer password to move a membership between two IDs that you own, perhaps to consolidate them for the purpose of deleting one account.

There are two ways to have a membership transferred between users, the first involves everything I stated above. It's the member-to-member transfer as described below.

Establish a transfer password in the account info section of your WebRing account. Remember that you must be logged in to access that screen. (Need additional help with establishing the transfer password?) Be sure to put it in the correct field. Do not change your login password!
Save the changes to your account info page.

The process of creating the password is done. Next comes the actual transferring of the membership. These instructions are for the User giving you the membership. Please note that, at this point, all transfers must be done on an individual membership basis. There is currently no way to transfer an entire stack of memberships belonging to one URL or U#.

Acquire the User ID and transfer password for the receiving User
Go into site management and enter the receiving ID and transfer password. (Need additional help with completing the transfer?)
The membership should now be removed from your View Ring Sites list and be visible on the same page of the receiving User's account.

As you see, transferring memberships, whether between IDs you own or different individuals, is not very difficult. It's a matter of proper configuration and communication.

The other way to transfer memberships and that is by having the RingMaster assign it to another ID. This is especially useful if a RingMaster notices that a specific membership is not migrated to a User's ID but that Member has other memberships on the same URL that are migrated or if a membership is not migrated to the correct ID. The RM can enter site management through Ring management and assign the membership to the new ID using a field at the bottom of the screen that can only be seen through the RingMaster's view of site management. RMs are advised in a note above that field that it should be used with caution as the membership doesn't do any good being given to someone who cannot manage both the site and the membership.

Members can request that a RingMaster assign their membership to another User ID; however, RMs should use caution when honoring such requests. These requests are infrequent and should include proof that the receiving ID really should be managing that membership. The RingMaster may choose to decline such a request, just to be safe.

Entire WebRings may also be transferred between users or offered up in a general public adoption. More information about such transfers is included in the WebRing Adoption Agency section of this Users' Guide.