RinkWorks

RinkWorks is a website primarily for entertainment, focusing on humor and games, mostly text-based. There is also a sizable section on movies.

RinkWorks features have been on the Internet in various incarnations since 1995; it premiered under the name "RinkWorks" in 1997, and was transferred to the domain rinkworks.com in 1998. It was created by and is maintained by Samuel Stoddard, with significant contributions from David J. Parker.

Notable features in the "Humor" section include "The Dialectizer", a tool that translates text or websites into a jocular "dialect" such as Redneck, Cockney, and Elmer Fudd; "Book-A-Minute" and "Movie-A-Minute", which feature "ultra-condensed" versions of popular books and movies, typically in the format of a script; and "Computer Stupidities" and "Things People Said", which feature user-submitted anecdotes of stupid, ignorant, or foolish things people have done or said ("Computer Stupidities" focuses on computer-related stupidities, while "Things People Said" is more general).

The "Games and Puzzles" section features some simple games such as Hangman and Rock, Paper, Scissors, both of which are featured in the "Classic Games" section. There is also a great number of text-based games; many are featured in a section called "Adventure Games Live", which is powered by an engine created by Stoddard. There is a game called "Monster Arena", a turn-based combat game that begins on the first of the month, with battles taking place each night. There is also a game called the "Site Market Game" that resembles the stock market but is based on the number of hits a particular RinkWorks section might receive, and the "Academy Awards Predictions Game" wherein, once a year, players try to predict the nominees, and later the winners, for the major Academy Award categories. Also in the "Games and Puzzles" section are the official FAQs for Apogee Software and Everett Kaser Software.

The "Movies" section has three features, all of which are quite extensive. The first is "At-A-Glance Film Reviews", which features (as of January 4, 2004) 3020 movies rated on a five-star scale, 2121 of which have accompanying reviews. The ratings and reviews are organized by decade, genre, artist, and quality, and are also searchable. The second feature is "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie" (run by Parker), which rates and reviews movies based on how terrible they are, and how much fun they are to watch because of it; the ratings system is based on a five-turkey scale. Finally, there is "The Film-Lover's Check List", which contains a massive and interactive list of movies which have won awards from various sources, or which are particularly notable for one reason or another (Such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, the 'Worst Movie of All Time'). The checklist allows every film to be marked as seen, seen and need to watch again, or unseen, and also provides a printable version of the individual's checklist for offline use.

There is also a "Hobbies" section, which features "EquiWorks" (a feature about model horse tack, run by Stoddard's wife Darleen), "Fun With Words" (a feature about interesting words and quirks of the English language), and a "Poetry Pool" section, featuring poetry submitted by users.

Finally, there is the section "Humor Bites", which has humor features that are essentially one-shot. Unlike the main "Humor" section, the individual features in "Humor Bites" are not updated periodically; once posted, they usually remain unchanged forever. Features of the "Humor Bites" section include "The Filmmaker's Exam" by Parker, which is a short quiz that lets you know whether or not the movie you intend to make should actually be carried out; "Slapdash City", a satire of personal home pages, especially those on GeoCities; and the three "How To Be" sections: "How To Be Funny", "How To Be Romantic", and "How To Be Persuasive".

RinkWorks also features a community section for the readers to converse and discuss, whether about the site or any other topic that comes to mind. These include a message forum and a chat room, the latter of which is currently powered by an engine called RookChat, created by Stoddard and currently available for download. Besides the usual banter expected in a chat room or message forum, there is frequent discussion of movies and politics, usually but not always with a humorous take.

There is also a site journal where Stoddard occasionally shares his thoughts.

Stoddard works frequently on the site, with several updates a month, whether major or minor, and sometimes introducing new features as well. The site remains popular, both with long-time devotees who frequent the message forum and chat room for several years, and with people "just stopping by" to read a humor bite or play a game. RinkWorks typically ranks somewhere in the twenty-thousands in the traffic rank on Alexa (as of July 26, 2005, its three-month average traffic rank is 21,727).

On May 17, 2004, RinkWorks introduced a subscription service. RinkWorks subscribers see no pop-up ads or banner ads on the site. Additionally, each page a subscriber sees has a navigational toolbar. They also have access to a few subscriber-only features, including the RinkWorks Museum. Unfortunately, at present the company that handled their subscription services, Bitpass, has gone out of business. That means RinkWorks no longer has the infrastructure in place [http://www.rinkworks.com/subscriptions/login.shtml to offer subscription services] .

RinkWorks has also invented a new holiday called "Stupid Day". Held on January 21, the day is a tribute to stupidity in all forms. Stupid Day can be celebrated in any way that involves stupidity in some form.

External links

* [http://www.rinkworks.com/ RinkWorks.com] - the main page.
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E6DD1531F93BA15751C0A9649C8B63 New York Times article] .