Text 15689, 103 rader
Skriven 2014-05-25 12:23:38 av Jon Justvig (1:124/25)
Ärende: Fidonews Vol 31 no 21 Page: 3
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                         Fidonet - Potty Net
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    Fidonet / Potty Mouth Net
    John Guillory 1:396/60.0

    I'm really not sure where, when, how, or even why the echos of
    fidonet have somehow managed to go to the gutter.  During the
    late 80's, fidonet was pretty much ran by the younger crowd
    consisting of individuals normally under 18 years of age.  Yes,
    modern sysops have changed.  The average sysop is the younger
    kids that ran BBSs in the late 80's, now more mature and doing so
    in the way they remembered it being.  I'm not really sure when it
    happened.  I do know a few months back, it didn't seem so bad.
    Some how, it seems as though the norm has been to use foul
    language and not care who you offend.  It's as if fidonet has
    stooped to the 'me attitude' everyone else is going to in the
    United States.  There was a time when Racial, derogitory,
    insulting comments wasn't allowed in any echomail area.  Now, it
    seems they have been encouraged!  Use of the 'f word' once was a
    guarantee to get you kicked out of fidonet and banned from every
    echo in existance and future existance.  Now, it seems to give
    you bragging rights.

    Why has the policy changed?  Perhaps one is because we allowed
    the entire structure of fidonet to be under mined and devalued.
    By relaxing the very principles of fidonet, we've lowered the
    quality of fidonet.  There's a comment about wearing too many
    hats in policy4, and I presume policy5 as well.  There where
    really good reasons why the founding authors of fidonet put it in
    there!  Just as there was very good reasons why the founding
    fathers of the United States determined that checks and balances
    was necessary, the founding authors of fidonet determined that
    certain pratices was necessary.  Fidonet is a hobby.  As such,
    most of the people running fidonet have other things to do
    besides sit at their computer 24 hours a day ensuring that things
    move smoothly.  I find it interesting that the average
    businessman knows that if you spread your duties out it makes
    things a lot easier on yourself, rather than expecting to do
    everything on your own.  A lot of talk lately about the nodes in
    fidonet that aren't really nodes, just taking up space in the
    nodelist for nodes that used to exist.  That's credited to either
    lazy coordinators, or coordinators wearing too many hats, or
    both.  If your a NC and a RC, it gets a little hard to know if
    every net and every node in your net is still active and
    adhearing to every guideline that the ZC tells you to ensure is
    in place.  Not to mention, the more duties you place on your
    self, the more burned out you'll get, which leads you to becoming
    lazy and relaxed at doing your job.  But its not just the NC's,
    RC's, etc.  that are getting lazy and wearing too many hats.
    Moderators have for years desired to "Collect" echos.  They feel
    it's their duty to collect as many echo's, because they're saving
    fidonet!  By claiming an echo that no one post in, call it their
    echo, then post a few messages to keep it on the backbone.  The
    big problem pointed out by many when they first started doing
    this is the fact that if an echo had no messages beyond the rules
    post and the absolute minimum post by the moderators to keep the
    echo alive, then why keep it on the backbone?  Sysop's that see
    it listed will add it to their feed and then when they see its
    dead just remove it.  No one wants to talk to their self!
    They're not doing fidonet or anyone else any favors.  In fact,
    let's consider the average collector.  Suppose he has 4000 echos
    he moderates.  Now, I ask of you.  You know how many echos you
    read every day, and you know that some echos have a lot of mail,
    and others have very little each day.  Some have none.  If you
    was a moderator of 4000 echos, would you have time to read
    through every single message in all 4000 echos, and be able to
    remember every person you had to ask to not post offensive stuff
    in, etc.  It's about equivilant to changing to using just a
    "National Police Department", and dropping all City, County, and
    State police, then expecting 10-12 police officers to patrol the
    entire country.  I'm betting there'd be a lot of places that'd
    start to have a HUGE problem with violance!  Not any different in
    echomail.  One person should not be expected to police the entire
    net!  A lot of people don't want to listen to the gripes,
    complaints, etc.  and just as well be a sysop, rather than take
    part in the day to day operations of the net, and that's fine.
    But, when it comes to one person doing everything, or you taking
    part and doing your job as a member of the network, you should
    step up, or don't complain when things are not ran right!  If you
    don't vote, don't offer to help manage things, and don't offer to
    take part in anything beyond just keeping your system running
    enough to be able to read mail; then you really aren't helping
    the net much, are you?  Wake up Fidonet!  Take back your net,
    before it's completely gone, and moderators, do you really prefer
    the potty mouth, name calling, and biggetry that's going on in
    the echo mail areas?  There was a time when moderators prided
    theirselves on not allowing garbage like that in fidonet!  If
    we're going to allow it, we might as well just start up our own
    news server, take down the BBS and allow the world to spam our
    areas!


    FIDONEWS  Vol 31 No 21       Page  3         May 26, 2014


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