Text 15310, 126 rader
Skriven 2011-03-15 16:11:22 av John Guillory (1:396/60.0)
  Kommentar till text 15295 av R Login (124695.fidonews)
Ärende: Fidonet echo not the same
=================================
 RL> |John Guillory wrote to R Login >

 RL> Why for God's sake not?
     Dovenet works differently than fidonet.  In many ways.  First and formost
  it's a QWK technology network.  Second, unlike fidonet, Dovenet is
  pre-configured and pre-installed on every Synchronet BBS.  You actually have
  to go through more work to remove dovenet than you do to use dovenet.

 RL> Is this a telnet BBS? Could you give me the address of 
 RL> one of the strongest BBS
 RL> in USA?
 RL> Surely worth a look...

    According to the nodelist, it looks like Janis is the present Zone Coord.
    which means in the USA She's kind of like the final authority over fidonet.
    She's not listed as the echo coordinator any, but...  Here's you some links
    to check out:

Echomail Coordinator Gord Hannah Dawson Creek, BC  Mail Only (no IP Address)
The North American Backbone, Zone1  the-estar.com  (Eastern Star) Janis's BBS
(www.filegate.net) can be telnet'ed to too, but the BBS its self is not
anything like Synchronet or Wildcat BBS's... I think it's MBBS or BBBS can't
remember....

I don't see the other major echomail networks, but semi-mention in the nodelist
of sstar.com (Southern Star).  I remember seeing something a while back about
Southern Star no longer being a feed for echomail, like it used to.  There used
to be I think 5 major distribution sites for echomail.  Southern Star, Northern
star, Eastern Star, Western Star, and can't remember the other one... Either
way all their domain names where sstar.com, nstar.com, estar.com, wstar.com,
etc. You could try each and see if they show up anything for old times sake,
but according to the fidonet nodelist the most recent Zone 1 Backbone Feed (the
place by which every BBS in North America eventually gets messages to and from)
is the-estar.com (Eastern Star).  www.filegate.net is a handy place to hold
onto in your bookmarks.  Any file that was transferred on the backbone is saved
on filegate and can be downloaded via web page there.  If you need a BBS
utility, old nodelist, whatever, you can find it there if its ever been sent
via a file-network.  It even has older maximus and a few other file
distribution networks that are no longer being used any more....


 RL> Hang on for a minute; what's REC what's NEC?
     The old *C terminology mentioned in fidonet... ;-) Political stuff
     ZC = Zone Coordinator, over all of the Zone (North America for us)
     ZEC = Zone Echo Coordinator, Distributes Echomail for All the zone
     RC = Regional Coordinator, Handles things for a region, for me
          I'm Region 19, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana
     REC = Regional Echo Coordinator, distributes echomail and may
           but not necessarily routes netmail from his region to
           the ZC and beyond....
     NC  = Net Coordinator, coordinates the local net (396 for me)
           In my case, pretty much South Louisiana
     NEC = Distributes Echo Mail to those in the net and may or may not
           handle routing of netmail as well...

    An individual node may pick up their feed elsewhere, but it's encouraged
    to get their feed from the NEC/REC/ZEC for effeciency.  Also, a node
    can be an "Independant" as I used to be, in which case I didn't belong
    to a network before, I was listed under the Region Coordinator.  In
    such a case, basically I'd answer only to the RC on policies....

 RL> So Janis would in this case be the backbone? - with 
 RL> further backbones down the
 RL> road..?
     She used to be, but apparently when she made Zone Coordinator, she
     turned the job over to Eastern Star.  (sorta)  They don't like
     coordinators wearing multiple hats.  That'd be kind of like the
     mayor of your city being the fire marshal, the governor, and the
     president at the same time.  It'd eliminate the ability of the
     checks and balances system....  Likewise, if someone is a NC, RC
     and ZC, who do you complain to when they are their own boss... ;-)
     For that reason Fidonet discourages one person doing everything...
     But because of problems in the past with echomail in North America,
     I do know for a fact that they allready have "backup backbones"
     setup in such a way that if the Zone-1 Echomail Backbone system
     goes down for any reason, they almost instantly switch to another
     BBS who handles the routing of echo mail until the other BBS gets
     back up.  This happened when Janis's system had a problem and went
     down for a week or two and everyone kept asking why there was no
     mail... Basically you'd have echo mail from your region or so, but
     no mail from other places....

 RL> the backbone would be the one you get your mail from? 
 RL> That's about all I can
 RL> tell.
     Not entirely.  The backbone is the primary distribution of echo mail for
     fidonet.  An echo does not need to be on the 'backbone' for a BBS to
     receive it.  In fact, before it gets on the backbone it must exist and
     be distributed to I think 5 different BBS's in I think 2 or 3 different
     regions from what I remember.  You should be able to find the exact
details
     in the latest policy document (Policy 4.??).  Yes, I don't keep up with
     every minor change to the policy, especially when the changes are so
minute.
     Suppose I wanted my own echo to discuss for example cat hearding.
     You'd need a "Tag Name" for the software to know what echo it is.
     Technically, the tag name has a limit of about 25 characters I believe.
     Unfortiantly not all software will allow for the full 25 characters,
     and some flake out if they have spaces, etc. So most sysops try to keep
     tag names as close to 8 characters as possible and usually will use
     under scores or periods instead of spaces.  So we'd call it something
     like catheard or cat.heard, or cat_heard to make it easier on folks.
     Next, it wouldn't be much of an echo if we didn't share it... So I
     get on the echo list and a few other advertisement echos and tell
     the world about it.  I also encourage anyone in the echos I talk in
     to request it... Until it gets on the backbone, they'll have to get it
     from me or someone I feed it to.  When we're ready to go to the backbone,
     from what I understand the sysop's who want to carry my echo would then
     contact the eastern star and request the echo to be picked up.  If
     the number of BBS's from the number of regions request it, then either
     the eastern star will pick it up directly from me, or my NEC will pick
     it up and forward it to the REC, who will forward it to the ZEC
     (Eastern star), who will then forward it to the REC's of the other
     regions, who then send it to the NEC's of the networks that want it
     till it gets to the BBS's of all those nice folks wanting to carry the
     echo.  From there, you have to have at least I think 1 message a month
     to keep it going.  Most folks will post the rules to keep their area
alive.
     Personally, I don't feel a rules posting should keep it alive.  If an
     echo is dieing, it should be allowed to die.  It keeps from wasting my
     time when I go to add echo mail areas to my BBS and discover their all
     dead and have to request other areas....


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