Text 15848, 105 rader
Skriven 2014-06-02 00:41:48 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 31:22 [02/07]: Guest Editorial
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                         GUEST EDITORIAL
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               Fidonet / Potty Mouth Net
               By 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!


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