Text 44843, 141 rader
Skriven 2006-12-25 00:45:02 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Michiel Van Der Vlist
Ärende: Re: Points vs users
===========================
 -=> On 12-24-06  14:11,  Michiel Van Der Vlist <=-
 -=> spoke to Dale Shipp about Points vs users <=-

 MVDV> When one reads through P4 with an open mind, one can not 
 MVDV> help noticing it was written with the presumption of "free" 
 MVDV> local calls....

  True -- it definitely talks about organizing nets around local call
  areas, etc.

 MVDV> Anyway, local calls have not always been metered here. I do 
 MVDV> not recall the exact date, but somewhere around 1985, they 
 MVDV> switched from a fixed amount per call - independent of 
 MVDV> duration - to a charge per time unit.

  I'm not sure, but I think that when I lived in England (early 70's)
  some home phones had metered calling, most home phones were charged
  per call and all pay phones were metered.   The difference here is
  that pay phones are metered and almost all home phones are unlimited
  local calls with no added fee.  Although one can get a plan with a
  very low monthly fee and then have metered or per call charges, it is
  rare that people do that on land line phones.
 
 MVDV> Off-line readers like BlueWave were never popular here. When the calls

   I was drawn to Blue Wave within the first week of my participation
   into Fidonet -- I have never used anything since, although I have
   sampled others from time to time.

 MVDV> were  still flat rate, BBS users would read and write messages on-
 MVDV> line. Sometimes staying on-line for hours. When the telcom 

   The BBSes here limited the amount of time a user could be on per day.
   The amount of time varied with BBS and whether or not the user
   "supported" the BBS (read = donated cash).   There was a problem with
   number of lines coming into the BBS (each of which cost the BBS
   money).

 MVDV> started metering local calls there was a strong incentive
 MVDV> to go to off-line reading and writing.

    I believe that some sort of off-line reading was always encouraged
    here -- until the present time with essentially unlimited
    connectivity.

 MVDV> Off-line readers are less efficient than point software, 

   Not sure about efficiency, but I have never found another reader that
   has the abilities of my BlueWave.

 MVDV> but my guess is that other reasons also played an important
 MVDV> role in making the decision.

 MVDV> 1) Point software is a bit more difficult to set up than 
 MVDV> BlueWave, but once it is installed it offers more than off-
 MVDV> line readers. F.e. it allowed freqqing files at any FidoNet 
 MVDV> system.

  In the current environment, it is difficult to find a new offline
  reader that has support.  I don't know about point software.

 MVDV> 3) There was no chicken and egg problem as with BlueWave. Not all BBSs
 MVDV> supported BlueWave and/or QWK and as few users asked for 

  Here, I never found a BBS that did not offer QWK.  Many did not offer
  native Bluewave format though.   I use BlueWave with QWK.  One of the
  more common BBS software systems was Maximus -- freeware and with a
  built in QWK door.  It is what I use for my system.

 MVDV> They were not "tied" to one boss.

  I don't know if that ever happened here.  I was a point, and when my
  bossnode folded, I had to go looking for other access.

 MVDV> 5) Points had *status*. Although formally they had no direct say in

  Don't believe that was true here.  I think that when it came to net
  politics, points were users (albeit superusers) and not members of
  fidonet.

 MVDV> least because pointing was also looked at as a breeding 
 MVDV> ground for new nodes. Almost every sysop, except for the 
 MVDV> first generation pioneers, started as a point.

  Probably true here also, with the exception that some sysops joined
  fidonet after having been a sysop in other networks.

 MVDV> That does not hold for the situation here. The main fight 
 MVDV> here was the seven year cost share war. Points were very 
 MVDV> aware of that because it affected them. "Why can't my buddy 
 MVDV> across the street have this echo that I have here? Because 
 MVDV> he is in a another net that is with the "other" CSO and we 
 MVDV> do not exchange echomail...."

   Interesting -- although I have heard of cost share problems in zone
   1, I have never been involved.   Since I moved from user to point, my
   primary source for echomail has always been outside my region.  I did
   make voluntary contributions to the net funds, but never was required
   to do so.  All of my primary feeds have been free feeds.

 DS> OTOH, the fighting and bitching that goes on does sometimes drive a
 DS> person away -- more likely it will drive a sysop away, and then that
 DS> sysop's users (if any) are left with no source.

 MVDV> I will not say, it never happened that a sysop pulled the 
 MVDV> plug because he got tired of the fighting. But then his 

   Since I wrote the above, I have read a message from a sysop who
   explicitly stated that he is contemplating dropping fido and shutting
   down because of the mess in this echo.

 MVDV> points usually found a new boss fairly quickly. Points use
 MVDV> mailers and a nodelist, just like sysops. It is as easy for 
 MVDV> a point to find a new uplink (Boss) as it is for a sysop to 
 MVDV> find a new uplink if his present uplink quits.

   Some users are not as flexible, nor as knowledgable as to alternate
   choices.   When an active BBS pulls the plug, a lot of people are
   left stranded and scrambling.

 MVDV> I don't think it was ever more than a minor factor, if a 
 MVDV> factor at all. Look at it this way: Despite the massive 
 MVDV> shrink, FidoNet is still considerably larger than any of 
 MVDV> the remaining othernets. Some of which allegedly do not 
 MVDV> have the fighting....

   And not all echos have the fighting, nor moderators who would
   tolerate it.

                               Dale Shipp
                  fido_261_1466 (at) comcast (dot) net
                              (1:261/1466)




... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 22:57:46, 24 Dec 2006
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

--- Maximus/NT 3.01
 * Origin: Owl's Anchor (1:261/1466)