Text 4514, 124 rader
Skriven 2005-01-03 04:41:13 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 22:01 [02/07]: Rebuttals To Previous Articles
==============================================================
=================================================================
                 REBUTTALS TO PREVIOUS ARTICLES
=================================================================

                       ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE
                      By Sean Dennis, 1:18/200

I'd like to comment on Bjorn's editorial and Philip's article in last
week's Fidonews. I read them both and basically agreed with them, but
I'd like to express my opinions on both of them. First, I think that
comparing some of the people in Fidonet to terrorists is a little
strong, but comparing them to spoiled brats is pretty damn close to
the truth of the matter.

For once, I'll agree with Bjorn: the squeaky wheel gets the grease or
in this case, the most replies. The problem is that the echo suddenly
becomes a second-grade sandbox with people throwing sand at each
other. It's really disenheartening. I come home from work and I look
forward to sitting down at the console to read my mail. I absolutely
love echomail-it's my way of keeping in touch with my long-time
friends.

But to my disappointment, I go into an echo and it's nothing but trash
throwing, temper tantrums, ad hominem (personal) attacks ad nauseum...
makes me wonder if it's worth keeping the Fido feed around at times.
I've disconnected from several echoes because of that very reason. I
won't mention any names because I don't feel like getting threatened
in netmail (you all know it happens- don't pretend to be suprised)
over my opinions about certain echoes.

So, therein lies the problem. If I, a seasoned sysop and BBS user,
cannot stand being in certain echoes because of the crap slinging,
what is a new sysop or user going to think of Fidonet? Think about it,
folks. What kind of example are we setting for new users?

To reference Philip's article for a moment: he mentions that the very
thought of Fidonet makes some new sysops sick. I second his
observation because I've seen that from other sysops myself. I am in
several other networks, to include my own FTN/QWK network I run, and
the agreement amongst many new sysops is that Fido's old, stale, and
full of inbred idiots that argue about stupid piddly things about DNS
servers and nodelist formats. Worse yet, about being passworded out of
someone else's system because the two "combatants" are having penis
wars.

...and we wonder why Fidonet's "dying". We're doing it to ourselves,
folks, and we're the only ones who can stop it. First, we need to
follow Bjorn's advice and just ignore the idiots that cannot seem to
stop causing trouble. Second, mail feeds need to take seriously a
moderator's feed cut request. We're moderators for a reason and not
all of us are on a power trip. My job as a moderator is to keep the
echo listed, make sure people behave and to encourage conversation,
that's it. Third, people need to resist the urge to act like complete
jackasses and start attacking people for dumb reasons.

Twit filters are good, but so is pressing the DELETE key or the
right-arrow key or ENTER. They all work fine!

Now, onto Philip's article... the reason for dead echoes is because
everyone's in the admin articles being idiots. I've seen more idiots
in certain echoes than there ever should be, but they're there. I've
disconnected myself from them because they are a waste of my
bandwidth, disk space and time to deal with. I'd much rather deal with
a low-traffic echo than one that's got a horrific signal to noise
ratio.

I will, however, respectfully disagree with Philip on his newsgroups
opinion. The newsgroups that I like to fancy (usually alt.bbs.*) are
filled with the same damned idiots that cause all sorts of hell in
Fidonet. God forbid, even idiots (no names, of course) that got
themselves banned from Fidonet.

There's more to my opinion, but I won't vent^H^H^H^Hdiscuss it here.

Also, the "hundreds and hundreds of echoes" comment: I beg to differ.
I can name several "othernets" that have tons of echoes and they're
all dead except the admin area(s). I've dropped many of them and am
now down to a select few. This list includes a few "QWK" networks also
that I've joined (I have the ability to connect Maximus to QWK
networking) and since left.

The "policy" comment also: Fidonet is the largest amatuer computer
network in the world (the Internet doesn't count in this one). There
has to be policy and rules, otherwise this place will fall apart
faster than some Fidonetters' strawmen. I think if people pulled their
heads out of their fourth point of contact and tried to agree to
something, perhaps we'd have an updated P4. But oh no. People just
have to sit here and be a *insert your favorite body orifice* about
it. Why? I don't know. I personally don't see anything wrong with P4
as it stands, but I've seen some good ideas get stalled "in committee"
because of stupid, inane, piddly things.

However, as Tom Jennings said, the day he let go of his total control
of Fidonet was the day that Fidonet went to hell in a handbasket. In
some ways, Fidonet needs a controlling hand, however, it cannot be in
a single hand. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we've seen in
the semi-recent "dual ZC" debaucle, which IIRC, isn't resolved as Z2
has two ZCs listed. Folks, in my opinion, that's absolutely childish
and made me lose respect for someone very quickly. Actually, several
someones.

I think a hundred lines of text is enough for everyone to suffer
thorough for one reading. I do hope that people do enjoy my writing
and if you don't, reply. Fidonews is for Fidonet. I agree with what
one sysop said to me about Fidonet's health and Fidonews: "If no one's
putting articles in the Fidonews, then Fidonet is surely in bad health
indeed." (My paraphrase, not the exact quote.)

C'mon, let's work together on this. I'm only one sysop. Fidonet's made
up of sysops and users too. Maybe it's not too late to turn back the
tide and make Fidonet dynamic, viable and active in the new century. I
read somewhere that dialup BBSes are coming back in vogue because a
lot of people don't feel that the Internet can be trusted anymore.

It's our network, it's our hobby. If we quit acting like fools,
perhaps other people will like Fidonet again and participate.

(Aside to Philip: Perhaps the Quantum Condom will make a comeback! :)


-----------------------------------------------------------------

--- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
 * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)