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Skriven 2006-12-04 02:24:42 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 23:49 [02/04]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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         Concerns about the decomposition of the nodelist
         By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555


Every once in a while I peruse the nodelist and I find an anomaly.
Something like this:

Region,64,Pacific_Islands_Regional_Coordinator,PHILIPPINES,
Terry_Roati,000-0-0-0-0,300,XR

Or this one:

Host,654,Shanghai_Net,Shanghai,Bin_Li,000-0-0-0-0,300,XA

Notice anything odd about these entries? In case you don't see it, try
to have your mailer make contact with them. It will fail for obvious
reasons; there is no contact information. No valid telephone number,
no IP address, no domain name. Nothing. These nodes are unreachable.

Now if they were leaf nodes this may just be acceptable if they were
listed with the Pvt keyword, but this is a Host and an RC. How can a
host fulfil his obligation of receiving incoming mail for the nodes in
his net if he himself has less reachability than a point? A point at
least can be reached through his boss node, but a host listed without
contact information is flat out unreachable.

What I find most odd is that when I vent my concerns about this
development, the only reactions I get are of the type: "why does it
concern you so much?" Or: "it is none of your bussiness, it is not in
your net, not even in your zone!"

Why does it concern me so much? I think that is the wrong question. A
more to the point question is "why do I seem to be the only one who is
concerned about this?" FidoNet does not stop at the end of my net. It
does not stop at the end of my region and it does not stop at the end
of my zone. FidoNet is a global newtwork defined by the nodelist. The
nodelist is build from the bottom up: hub segments, net segments,
region segments, zone segments and finally the international nodelist.
We do not limit the distribution of the segments to our own net,
region, or zone, no we distribute a global nodelist to every node in
the network. The argument "it is none of your business, it is not in
your net/region/zone" is a bogus argument. If there is garbage in the
nodelist it affects everyone who uses the nodelist. I.e every sysop
and pointop in FidoNet.

FidoNet is on the decline, that is a fact. People leave because they
lose interest, they find shinier toys to play with and sadly enough
some leave feet first. There is little or nothing we can do about
that. But what we still CAN do something about, is keeping the
nodelist in sync with reality. What we CAN do something about is
keeping the garbage out of the nodelist.

If the system of a host or NC is no longer running a FidoNet
compatible mailer for receiving mail, that system can no longer
function as a host for the net and should be replaced. If a suitable
replacement can not be found within the net, the net can no longer
function as a net and it should be resolved. Any remaining functional
nodes should be listed as independents in the region, relocated in a
neighbouring net - if need be by expanding the geographical bounderies
of that neighbouring net or continue to participate by operating as a
point under whatever uplink they get their mail from.

If the system of a region coordinator no longer runs a FidoNet
compatible mailer for receiving mail, that RC can no longer perform
his duties and should be replaced. If a suitable replacement can not
be found within the region, that region should be dissolved and the
remaining nets/nodes should be relocated to a neighbouring region or
neighbouring regions, if need be by expanding the geographic
bounderies of those neighbouring regions.

And of course the same goes on the zone level. If a zone becomes too
small, has to few participants to fill the *C positions and keep up
the net/region/zone hierarchy in any meaningful way so it no longer
functions as a zone, it should be dissolved and the remaining nodes be
relocated to a neighbouring zone or zones.

In some cases this may go smooth and almost spontaneously - as in the
case of R2:28 - and in some cases it will take more drastic measures
than self regulation to achieve the goal. But if we fail to take these
measures, we will continue to see the nodelist decompose into a list
of unreachable nodes with no structure and full of dead wood. A clean
and up to date nodelist is in the interest of everyone who makes use
of it. Why am I the only one who seems concerned about its
decomposition?


(c) 2006, Michiel van der Vlist. All rights reserved. Permission to
distribute via the FdioNews file echo and the FidoNews echomail
conference.


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