Subj : PLEASE ADD status
To : Dale Shipp
From : August Abolins
Date : Mon May 10 2021 08:17 am
Hello Dale Shipp!
** On Thursday 15.04.21 - 00:19, Dale Shipp wrote to Vincent Coen:
DS> The Elist has never been a Fidonet only listing. There
DS> were always echos from other networks included. When did
DS> that change?
It seems to have changed when sysops stopped marketing.
Or.. when fidonet and othernets were more active, maybe users
managed to do most of the legwork tracking things down? now
users (the conversationalists) have moved on to the internet
(forums/chats) and use their smartphones for that.
I hear sysops lamenting the traffic in echos is not as it used
to be. But today, I see mostly sysops chatting between sysops.
There are a few othernets that could serve users looking for
conversation/info well. But there isn't any easy way for those
users to find out what those echos are.
The ELIST bot/system is a good automated way to register echos
for *any* net. Then it becomes a nice catch-all for users to
browse and explore the echos available.
There are two solutions that consolidate fidonet and othernets
that exist quite well:
[1] Rob Swindell's list of participating Synchronet BBSes in
the "Networks" column, here:
http://synchro.net/sbbslist.html
[2] Bryan Ashby's initiative called FTN Networks
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/
17pmf7cS9ocU99Rm6qlJD_OncqmbDI5Qj8Yw99A5bgVc/edit?usp=sharing
https://tinyurl.com/yhnw56n2
Both are excellent one-stop places that document available
othernets and fidonet.
But what is lacking is something the summarizes echomail areas
within those nets and where they are available - from a USERS
point of view.
I see that ELIST could do that. An entry for FSX_GEN could
look like this for example in its most minimal form:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
==> Echo Successfully Identified
TAGname: FSX_GEN Group: fsxNET
TITLe: Chat, Testing + More..
MODerator: UNSPECIFIED
ORIGIN: 21:1/100
-=:{ End of Report }:=-
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
And the info could be gleened from an available FSXNET.NA file.
The ELIST system could include copies of the fsxNET info kit.
Then the ELIST echo becomes a good one-stop shop to find
available echos.
--
../|ug
--- OpenXP 5.0.49
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)
