Text 731, 83 rader
Skriven 2004-10-10 23:24:28 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 21:41 [04/11]: Fidonet Net News
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                        FIDONET NET NEWS
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                 -=: Fido On The Web is Here! :=-
                     Jon Watson, 1:134/703
                     The HeatSink BBS
                     telnet://theheatsinkbbs.ca
                     http://www.theheatsinkbbs.ca

It's been done, you say? I say not.

I think that no matter who we are, we can all agree that the decline
of Fidonet in North American is largely due to the fact that the
computer user base, while growing, has a raplidly deteriorating
skillset. Deteriorating to the point that most users would probably
consider a "right-click" an advanced "hacker" move. Attempting to
coerce these individuals into something like telnet or dial-up BBS'ing
is..well...like trying to get your dog to do your calculus homework.
Your dog has no frame of reference.

I have been a Fido sysop twice. Once back in the 1993-1995 and now
since June of this year. In my former Sysop-ness I left because the
cost of the extra phone line was killing me (yes, I was poor as most
of us were/are), and 8-line behemoths like Nulceus, Octapode, and
Chatline were too hard to compete with. Now that telnet is a viable
alternative to dial-up (for some) and I'm not as poor as I used to be,
I'm back running a Linux telnet-only node and loving it!

I've spent the intervening years becoming educated and experience in
the computer field. I'm an excellent systems integrator - getting
things to play nice together is my forte - and I want to try to
integrate two wonderful things in an effort to help revitalize
Fidonet: The WWW and Fidonet.

It seems to me that any attempt to bring new users into Fidonet will
fail if we try to make these users use terminal software. Large black
screens scare the hell out of your average computer user these days.
In the same vein, the attempt will not be completely successful if we
try to get these users to use a web interface that doesn't bear some
resemblance to what they're used to using. I think the best formula
for success is to provide the user with a web forum interface that
resembles what they are used to using on other forum websites. There's
never been any question about content - Fido's content has always been
vibrant, plentiful, informative, and sometimes humourous. It's all
about the interface.

To that end, I've taken normal, standard web forum software from
Simple Machines (which bears a distinct resemblance to PHPBB, PHPNUKE,
and pretty much any other mainstream web forum software out there) and
integrated Internet Rex, MBSE BBS, and my own custom PHP scripts to
build a system that replicates my BBS echoes onto the web forums. The
forums are available on the web (duh) and provide read and write
access to  Fidonet. Users that prefer the BBS can telnet in and use
the messaging echoes that way, and users that prefer the web can use
their browser to use the echoes that way. In fact, neither type of
user even needs to be aware that the other interface exists. Messages
are replicated between the BBS and the Web every 15 minutes, and the
BBS software takes care of gating messages out to my uplinks as per
normal.

Informally I've called the system Fido On The Web (FOTW) for now and
as of the 9th of October, it's running live. I currently have 10
echoes online and admittedly they are mostly about Internet BBS'ing
but that's sufficient for the testing phase. I'm currently inviting
Fidonet users to check out the system and provide feedback. I'm
really, really inviting those users who like the idea to make use of
the PayPal Donate button on the menu to help me collect the cash
required to upgrade my IREX to the 1000 node license :)

Either way, I'm not going anywhere - I like reading my Fido On The
Web!

- Jon Watson
SysOp
The HeatSink BBS
http://theheatsinkbbs.ca
telnet://theheatsinkbbs.ca

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