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Ärende: FidoNews 30:13 [02/06]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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Zone-2 and Zone-3 to merge

By  Ward Dossche 2:292/854
And Scott Little 3:712/848

The ever shrinking nodelist has been a reason for concern
for quite a while. Whole zones have been disappearing,
regions have gone down the drain. Fidonet is not only
shrinking in numbers, but also in geographical spread.

The ZCs of zone-2 and -3 recognize this phenomenon and
have initiated negotiations about "the next step" to be
taken in order to safeguard the continuity of Fidonet.
The mandate to do this is reflected in our job-
description.

With the example in zone-2 where regions guaranteed
survival by merging and combining resources, we have come
to the conclusion that our hobby is best served by
merging both our zones into one.

Zones 2 and 3 will cease to exist 6 months from now and
will be dropped from the nodelist the first Friday of
October 2013, October 4th.

All region segments will have been migrated by then in a yet
to be created new zone-7 and the top-level mandate will
be open for election.

Until the election of a new Z7C, the office will be
occupied by Scott Little. Ward Dossche will take a step
back and will continue his endeavour to be re-instated as
IC.

This decision was not taken lightly, but it was one that
was long overdue. Perhaps to restore equilibrium zone-1
could be encouraged to absorb the live-nodes of zone-4,
whichever they are.

The Z7C election will be run by 7:7/2000 Steven Leeman.
Candidacies can be sent there. As there is a continuity
issue as well as exceptional multiple hats situations,
certain categories of nodes will not be allowed to run
for office:

* All individuals listed as unreachable, meaning  for
  example showing CM or ICM but no contact data
* Entries with an  "-unpublished-" number unless the
  sysop occupies another qualifying entry
* Entries with illogical strings as a PSTN-number "00-
  00-000000", "11111111111", "0123456789" etc
* Any person unable to handle standard "makenl"-software
* Officers of relevant fora of a technical or
  political nature

Further:

* English language skills are a must
* 24/7 PSTN and IP access required

We understand that this communication will generate
debate as well as questions. Both Scott Little and Ward
Dossche can be reached by netmail on their historical
addresses in their respective zones (until October).

There is also an echomail conference available, even on
the NAB, to coordinate this effort and keep the other
echoes open for regular business. The name of the
conference is MERGER.

A temporary zone-7 segment has already been included in
zone-2's DAILYLST-distribution for those wishing to
already have a peek. This week the segment will be
offered to all other ZCs for inclusion in their segments.

Both Scott and Ward are stressing the need for this
merger and believe that zones-2 and -3 will emerge as
stronger once this is finished.

Ward Dossche                    Scott Little
2:292/854                       3:712/848

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