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Table of Contents
1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1
2. COLUMNS .................................................. 4
Let's YACK about A User's Viewpoint ...................... 4
3. NOTICES .................................................. 6
The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 6
New Fire Service Echo! ................................... 6
Latest Software Versions ................................. 6
FidoNews 5-37 Page 1 12 Sep 1988
[This is essentially the text of a message I left in the BCSNet]
[conference. It's being submitted to FidoNews at the suggestion]
[of one of the Arrogant Hackers and the IC. A couple of points]
[of grammar have been changed, some things expanded on, and some]
[local references have been changed.]
[Bob Gorrill is the co-director of the BCSNet Telecomm group and]
[operates a number of BBS's in the Boston area. Kenyon Karl]
[operates the BCS TRS-80 board (80-Boston).]
> I'm sure we could some psychology student looking for a thesis
> into fidonet and see what makes it so self destructive.
I believe you have missed the point. There are a couple of
problems that lead to "self destructiveness" as a sympton. Most
of them are related to echomail. One sysop used the words "hiding
behind a policy complaint". A policy complaint is a clean
mechanism for resolving disputes. It sure as hell beats the
general means of dispute "resolution" in this day of echomail:
he who shouts loudest wins. A policy complaint would result in
resolution. All blathering in echomail accomplishes is leaving
the IMPRESSION that one side or the other is right, depending on
who you agree with, PROPAGATING the problem.
The frustrating part of all this is just how many sysops have
taken the time to read Policy3? How many who bitch about IFNA
have really taken the time to read the documents that form the
legal "paper chain" we are bound by? Is FidoNet collectively
self destructive, or is it more an issue of people trying to
operate a complex system without RTFM? It's certainly not fair
to say that only the people in FidoNet don't RTFM.
This is the basic problem. Layered on top of it is "sysop
turnover". Fully 50% of the sysops who are here now were not
here a year ago, and this will probably continue for a couple of
years. I am continually amazed (unfairly) by questions like:
Who is Tom Jennings? Which was written first, Opus or Fido?
(Clear evidence that people don't RTFM.)
Most of these new sysops have a fundamentally different
experience in entering the net. In the "old days", things were
really much more difficult than they are now at a technical
level. At a social level, this unified the net - everyone who
was here had gone through a relatively difficult, common "rite
of passage" to get their node number. Now, there is a plethora
of choices to get yourself up and running, and it's getting
closer and closer to "plug and play". As Vince says, the network
has changed from a common effort to a consumer support system.
Since there was no echomail, disputes occurred far less often,
and were usually quite local in scope. They were generally
resolved that way. Nowadays, even AFTER a dispute has been
FidoNews 5-37 Page 2 12 Sep 1988
resolved according to Policy locally, it can still be carried
on in echomail internationally.
The formal social mechanisms of FidoNet have two major drawbacks:
there is no clear means defined for alteration of the one
document we agree we operate under (Policy3), and they were put
in place before echomail was the force it is today. (When
Policy3 was drafted, there were about 1000 nodes, and echomail
was just beginning. Now there are 3500+, most of which are
connected to one conference or another.)
New sysops come in with their own expectations of what FidoNet is
or should be. These expectations may or may not be valid, but
they are often contradictory with the stated goals of the
mechanisms in place (the TJ contract, the IFNA Articles of
Incorporation and Bylaws, and Policy3.) Since there is no clear
means to change the mechanisms, people go shovel dung in
echomail. Echomail is almost like interactive TV - it CAN be a
tremendous force for good ... but it also tends to oversimplify
issues and polarize audiences. Words can be distorted and taken
out of context, and reacted to on that basis by people
originally not involved in the discussion. More and more, people
take positions AGAINST this or that as opposed to FOR something.
Further compounding these problems is the fact that at this time,
it is not clear whether a Policy complaint can be made and upheld
on the basis of echomail. Those complaints that have been made
and upheld upon appeal involved explicitly illegal behaviour.
Some decisions have been made at lower levels involving
"annoying behaviour", but to the best of my knowledge, none has
been appealed all the way up the chain. Annoying is a real
tough call. There are a lot of people in the net who annoy the
hell out of me. But they also make me think. And I have a
simple option with someone annoying me in echomail - stop reading
it. But that leaves new sysops with a skewed perception of the
net.
One problem that an RC in particular faces is that we're
generally encouraged not to file policy complaints against sysops
in our regions. (NC's are similiary discouraged from filing
complaints agains nodes in their own net.) A problem an EchoMail
coordinator has is that in taking the position, he basically
agrees to provide all kinds of riff raff with the soapbox to
criticize the services he is generally paying for. The *EC
structure is in an even more difficult position, because there
is no written policy for it, and recent events have halted
progress toward same.
This reveals a problem anyone who has been here for a while has
experienced. That is that one gets sick to death of reading
messages from people asking questions for the Nth time, very
often in a very adversarial manner. Eventually, they stop
answering. It really gets frustrating when new sysops come in
and EXPECT all this stuff, EXPECT that the *C structure is
supposed to help them get set up (we're not), EXPECT they should
be able to get echomail, EXPECT to get a new version of Opus for
FidoNews 5-37 Page 3 12 Sep 1988
free, etc. There are a lot of people in the net, and even a
couple in this conference, who expect a lot for nothing. That's
the question your psychology student should be looking into.
TANSTAAFL.
There's a lot of work to be done. It's not clearly defined, and
no one is going to say "Here - go do this". Look at what Bob
Gorrill and Kenyon Karl are doing - they find needs, and address
them. Kenyon is a very good example of this: he spent a lot of
time bitching about this or that - now he's just DOING THINGS TO
SOLVE PROBLEMS. I did a lot of complaining when I first got
involved with echomail (and indeed, with the net). Look where
it got me. The primary question is always: Are you a part of the
problem, or a part of the solution? We have enough problems. We
need more solutions, and more people working toward them.
"So does the international mail area go through BBS to BBS or
just to one person?"
This was a user in (C)hat mode one night. I winced. It was like
asking, "Well, what's this Network Mail thing, anyway?"-The heart
of FidoNet, Network mail at NMH, and this user, who was experi-
enced in the echos, was just getting around to actually seeing
that netmail existed.
Well, this is understandable. Today, in FidoNet, it's the echos
that appeal to the users. A subject -- and LOTS of people to
talk with about it! Wow! And you're in WHICH state? Hey! I
visited there once! Well, I tried this... -- and so on.
Okay, echomail has its appeal. I'd personally love to subscribe
to well into dozens of conferences. But then I'd spend ALL my
time at the BBS instead of only 90% of it. No, you can't get
into everything. Not in my case. It'd be all too easy to forget
the outside world. I know -- I've been there.
I personally have a thing for netmail. Direct, cheap, reliable
communications with other computer weenies I know? Can't beat
it! I sent a 4-page letter to Ohio once; got my reply the next
morning. The board charged me 18 cents and the phone call cost
14. Amazing what an amateur network of BBSs can do. Like get
4000 BBSs BSing all hours of the night. That's MY fascination.
The average user today doesn't care much about netmail. In fact,
around here, most probably don't even know what it is. It's not
ADVERTISED much. Hey, look! A STAR TREK echo! -- and the
netmail area never even gets looked at.
Those that do inquire get turned off as soon as they find out
it's going to cost them. But, if you don't have friends that use
BBSs in other areas of the country, netmail doesn't hold much
value for you. It's rather a limited conversation media.
Of course, the majority of the users I see seem to think that a
BBS is designed strictly around offering software for free. Oh,
I carry some file areas, but I try to emphasize the message areas
in the NEWUSER files. Every once in awhile it sparks a user to
check out mail instead of files, and of course it's echomail they
go after. But at least they're into E-Mail, and THAT's FidoNet.
FidoNews 5-37 Page 5 12 Sep 1988
Christopher Baker
MetroFire, 1:135/14
Miami_FL_USA
New Fire Service Related Echo - FireHouse Cooking
I have started a new Echo for those of us who participate in
FireNet. It is called FireHouse Cooking and the Echo label is
FHCOOK. It is available from this system at 1:135/14 and I
expect it will also be available from FireNet Leader at
1:128/16 once they've heard about it in FireNet Echo.
If you would like to participate in FH Cooking, send NetMail
to me at 1:135/14. FH Cooking is all about the greatest
improvisational cooks in the world - the ones who cook huge
meals for hungry FireFighters and Paramedics! It is geared
to the LARGE recipe and LARGE appetite. Anyone interested in
cooking for more than ten people at a time or providing
insight into same are welcome to attend.
Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by
reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list
all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity.
Hal DuPrie 101/106 Chairman of the Board
Bob Rudolph 261/628 President
Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President
Ray Gwinn 109/639 Vice President - Technical Coordinator
David Garrett 103/501 Secretary
Steve Bonine 115/777 Treasurer
IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
DIVISION AT-LARGE
10 Courtney Harris 102/732? Don Daniels 107/210
11 Bill Allbritten 11/301 Hal DuPrie 101/106
12 Bill Bolton 3:54/61 Mark Grennan 147/1
13 Rick Siegel 107/27 Steve Bonine 115/777
14 Ken Kaplan 100/22 Ted Polczyinski 154/5
15 Larry Kayser 104/739? Matt Whelan 3:3/1
16 Vince Perriello 141/491 Robert Rudolph 261/628
17 Rob Barker 138/34 Steve Jordan 102/2871
18 Christopher Baker 135/14 Bob Swift 140/24
19 David Drexler 19/1 Larry Wall 15/18
2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 107/233
