Subj : Observations of the current ELIST.RPT
To : August Abolins
From : mark lewis
Date : Sun Jan 09 2022 06:10 am
On 2022 Jan 08 23:17:00, you wrote to me:
ml>> ..i can think of several reasons to have an echotag listed
ml>> in the echolist without it being distributed... if you
ml>> can't think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the
ml>> last 30+ years of exactly why the echolist existed and
ml>> what it was used for?
AA> What precludes another listing with a matching echotag to be
AA> listed?
because there can be only one entry with the same echotag...
AA> Basically, the ELIST can be used as a way to broadcast the
AA> existence of local echos specific to one BBS?
so, let's start at the beginning, ok? from fidonews319...
I'm very interested in ECHOMAIL networking. I know this is a can
of worms, since some (many?) think ECHOMAIL may (will?) ruin
FidoNet. Well I'm open minded and think it just might work out.
Now to finally get to the point. I've been on a few different
FIDOs across the country and have discovered that the use of
ECHOMAIL is much more widespread then I originally thought! I've
seen several interesting topics being networked, but would have
never known about them. Since there is nobody (as far as I know)
acting as an ECHOMAIL coordinator I'd like to volunteer. I'd
like to do two things. 1 Find out which Sysops are running
ECHOMAIL and for what topic. 2 Create a wishlist registry. This
way if a Sysop wants to network an ECHOMAIL topic or generate
interest in a new ECHOMAIL topic there will be a clearing house
for such an activity!
I ask everybody that is reading this to please send me FidoNet
mail if you:
1 Are a sysop running ECHOMAIL (what topic & routing),
2 know of a system running ECHOMAIL (what net/node & topic),
3 wish there was somebody else that shared a common interest
(what topic).
Thank you very much, Thomas Kenny, Metatek FIDO, 107/316.
and this article by mike fuchs from fidonews533...
FidoNews 5-33 Page 7 15 Aug 1988
Mike Fuchs
1:1/201
EchoList - The EchoMail Conference List
(It's bAAAAaaaack...)
Ever wonder what all those EchoMail conferences are about?
Ever wonder if there was already a conference on some
specific topic? Well that's why the EchoList was originally
created. And that's why I've resurrected it.
For those of you who might not be familiar with it, a little
history...
The EchoList is an informal listing of EchoMail conferences,
as described by each conference's moderator. It is now a
monthly publication which attempts to document certain
interesting information about EchoMail Conferences;
"interesting" to people who would like to participate,
interesting to EchoMail Coordinators and those who route the
conference traffic, and potentially interesting to the
Conference Moderator. The base product of the EchoList
database is the detailed Conference listing. But, as needs
are identified which can be satisfied with the available
information, additional reports and analyses can be
developed.
The EchoList was originated by Thomas Kenny, who maintained
it as a text file completely manually. It was a time
consuming effort, and was updated on a very sporadic and
infrequent basis. The last edition published this way was
December 1987.
Several people (myself included) were working with Thomas on
developing ways to automate the maintenance, and provide a
structured database that could be used for things other than
a simple conference listing. As a result, he assembled a
specification for submitting messages that would be used for
updating the list. Unfortunately, Thomas decided to drop
out of FidoNet before any of the code was completed. He
continues to have my gratitude for all he put in to getting
the EchoList as far as he did.
Since I was interested (for purely personal desire) in
having an EchoList, I picked-up that last 1987 EchoList,
built an R:base database and application, and keyed the
whole thing in. The result is a semi-automated update
application, and some nice report generation facilities.
There's a lot more to be done. It's still a VERY labor-
intensive task. But, I'm happy to say I've been able to
publish all updates received for the last 3 months on-time.
Now, I'm going to try and ruin that by inviting more
updates...
HISTORY LESSON OVER...
That's why I wrote this article. It has been pointed out to
FidoNews 5-33 Page 8 15 Aug 1988
me that there are a lot of people who don't realize the
EchoList is available. Most importantly, there are a lot of
Conference Moderators who don't know, and as a result their
conferences aren't in, or will soon be dropped from, that
list.
You see, one of things that seems to be widely agreed upon
is that, in order to be really useful, an EchoList needs
some control criteria. Hating bureaucracy as I do, I've
only implemented two (at this point). First, in order to be
listed, a conference must have a responsible party to whom
questions can be directed; that person is the Moderator.
Second, since reference information is only valuable if it's
up-to-date, an EchoList conference entry must be updated via
message to me on a regular basis.
So there's the reason for the article. A number of
conferences have already been dropped because they had no
moderator identified. (How anybody's supposed to join a
conference when there's no one identified to contact, I'll
never know, but so be it.) The other thing is that most of
the entries' last-update dates are VERY old. Starting with
this next EchoList, I will start enforcing a purge criteria.
An awful lot of conferences will be dropped as a result.
Many are dead wood anyway. But there are many such
conferences I know are alive and well, and I hope this
article gets the message to those moderators. If you
frequent a conference important to you, how about letting
the moderator know about the EchoList?
Oh yeah, I lied. There is one more control, but it is for
the Moderators themselves. A Moderator can submit an entry
that becomes password protected. From then-on, the
moderator has some feeling of control over the information
listed in the EchoList for their conference.
[...]
i'll stop there for now as these two articles provide the basics and they are also easily found so one can read them for themselves... how did i find these articles? i used grep and searched my fidonews archives for "echolist" and then for "thomas kenny" to find the original article(s) and motivations...
here is a list of all fidonews editions up to Vol 9 Num 52 that contain the above mentioned search terms...
i stopped there for a couple of reasons... one was just because... another was at some point, every issue contains "echolist" in it... these above are the most important, though, when it comes to the history of the echolist... there are a few more, as well, but these are the best place to start...
fido410 speaks of the format of the echolist... it even mentions one reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed... somewhere around here i have other documents that speak of maintaining echolist entries of echotags for the purposes of showing ownership and maintaining that ownership... i'm just the messenger so please don't anyone start on me about that... it is what it is... the support areas for WORDSTAR, WORDPERFECT, NOVELL, and others come to mind...
in any case, there's a bit of reading on the origins and use(s) of the echolist for everyone to enjoy for a little bit...
)\/(ark
"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... Five word horror story: Three Billion Devices Run Java
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* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)
