Letters to the Editor

RESPONSE TO EDITORIAL
IN FIDONEWS OF 29 JUN 1998
By Kent Anderson, 1:382/92 kand@onr.com

In Fidonews V15N24, in part of your editorial, you said this:

"In other news, the battle to wrest control of the EchoMail Listing has now moved into high gear, with the RECC all but demanding that the Z1C choose a particular system."

I am a long time hangout in the Moderator and ZEC echos, and am a Moderator, (Memories) so I have to wonder where did this "battle to wrest control take place?" There was an outcry from Moderators when John Souvestre reported Adrian Walker's alleged wish that the Echolist be turned over to Peter Witschi, the Zone 2 Echolist Coordinator. I have been told that Zone 2 operates under an unratified Echopol which much resembles a certain ECROC, so why would I want my echo handled in Zone 2.

Adrian Walker was never anything but helpful and nice to me, so I have no quarrel with him, but his departure did appear to me to be much like that of a child throwing a temper tantrum. He certainly did not do it with the grace and dignity of Mich Fuchs, who had the courtesy to see that the robot was smoothly passed into Adrian's hands. Thus, there was no disruption of Echolist updates. We might say that the uproar, or stink if you will, was caused by this tantrum.

"Odd how this came out immediately after the existance of other ELIST systems was announced in the FidoNews."

But, I think you tie their action to the wrong event. Your mention in an earlier Fnews did not name any specific echolists other than the Zone 1 and Zone 2 echolists. We Moderators, all along, have been aware that there were other, smaller echolists. In Zone 1, however, the major one has been the one which Adrian's Robot faithfully handled each month. In the Moderator Echo and elsewhere, Thom Lacosta announced that he had what he believed to be an excellent replacement system for Adrian's robot, and offered to run an open test of it to see if his assessment was correct.

There was a tremendous response from Moderators, and it became obvious that his system's performance was very, very good, and it was then accepted by many, if not most of the Moderators who had input to it. So, recognizing that Moderators should have the major influence in selection of such a system used, the RECC's were kind enough to "suggest" to Bob Satti that Thom's system be awarded the title of "Echolist Robot" under a separate node number to distinguish it from Adrian's old system. In my considered opinion, not only was this move not politics but a recognition of the desire of Moderators as expressed by many, many of them. As I see it, it was done to help keep a political battle from erupting, and in consideraton of the necessity for getting an operating Echolist Robot in place as quickly as possible.

"One would think that a more prudent RECC would look at all of the accesibile systems before settling on one...or is this just another jab at the ZEC, and the RECC refusal to work with him?"

You may manufacture any scenario you like out of it, but how do you know the RECC didn't look at others, but recognized and supported those most affected rather than some other faction?

"More odd that the RECC would claim that the ZEC is supposedly to 'moderate and present' to the RECC, but then turns around to lock the ZEC out of discussions, then claim that the ZEC is not doing his assigned duties."

If the ZEC is Bob Kohl, he has also said that the Echolist should be above politics, and your charges of some political agenda driving toward the selection of Thom's system appear to me to be totally manufactured and paranoid.

"But then, these are also the same people who present in their erstwhile ultimatum to the Z1C that they wish the ELIST process to be above politics, while using the same proposed system as a political tool."

I believe my other remarks have covered this.

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