Subj : Re: echos - a morbid curiosity To : Charles Pierson From : Kurt Weiske Date : Wed Dec 16 2020 07:30 am -=> Charles Pierson wrote to August Abolins <=- CP> Fidonet is not a business, Its a platform for and by hobbiests. These CP> hobbiests have different interests, so their BBSes are going to reflect CP> thay. CP> You aren't likely to convince very many sysops to change how they do CP> things. The way you would like things to be only stands a chance of CP> happening is for people with views like yours to start BBSes in the way CP> you would like to see them. I think it's safe to say that most BBS message areas break down in to 3 categories: 1. Just the message areas the sysop reads 2. The whole echolist 3. Whatever echoes have traffic in posts to the STATS echo I'm in camp number 3; unfortunately it's counter-productive as it promotes traffic in existing echoes instead of promoting new/quiet echoes. I've always wanted BBS software that would auto-add areas when received, and prune them when dead for a set period of time. Subscribe to everything your uplink has and let the BBS sort the areas out... Regarding "private" echoes that aren't advertised, I don't understand that. I've seen some people complaining about the backbone list and the echolist based on fear of someone exerting control or censorship over echoes, but how else are you going to advertise them and get new contributors? AA> > AA> It would be nice if there was a more consolidated (and real-time) w AA> > AA> announce active/live echos. AA> > You aren't going to get real-time with FTN Technology. The best you'lll AA> > is those systems that have bots or whatever that post stats from their AA> > systems. AA> AA> If "bot" is the closest to real-time, that would be great! CP> They post in the STATS echo. Which youpve already said is mind numbing CP> for you. CP> You have ECHO_ADS for Moderators to post about their echos. CP> The best thing that I can come up with for a typical BBS would be the CP> sysop could post a bulletin with a list of echos they carried and a CP> desriptuon of them. CP> --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32) CP> * Origin: theoasisbbs.ddns.net:1357 (1:153/757.26) .... Are there sections? Consider transitions --- MultiMail/XT v0.52 * Origin: http://realitycheckbbs.org | tomorrow's retro tech (1:218/700) .