Editorial

More of the same, just weirder. A serious eye problem has kept me from doing much with computer screens for the past week, but it is slowly healing....enough for me to scan over the usual and see that the same continues...and perhaps a bit more keenly...

This week, the same perceptions are brought forward, while more goes on in the background...perhaps it's time to bring some of it forward.

After looking over Cindy Ingersoll's list published here last week, I find it interesting to note that nearly every Zone 1 node that offers Fidonet via Internet charges for access, but nearly every non-Zone 1 node does not.

This at a time when Fidonet is shrinking in Zone 1, but growing in other countries, and despite the fact that Internet access is cheaper in Zone 1 than anywhere in the world. For that matter, so is telephone service, computer equipment, and everything else involved in running a BBS.

It's hard not to attribute a cause-and-effect relationship to this correlation but I suppose I can manage.

After all, the Stars manage, no?

Likewise, the consistent threat of at least one such provider to 'no longer carry FidoNews' if it contravenes that person's 'view' as to what the FidoNews should or should not publish, carry or cover has worn thin. The less-than-veiled threat of censorship by not carrying FidoNews only makes the threat more visible for what it is...plain, simple censorship.

Besides, without the FidoNews, that same provider would not have a own platform to spew forth a version of hate, innuendo and less than complete truth...as much an accusation as has been slung at this Editor by the same person.

I suppose no one will truly be happy until the Snooze is controlled by a group devoted to their own agenda...or until their coalition of convenience breaks down.

Likewise, the comments on vendettas and other alleged pogroms being carried out by this Editor pale compared to the same vendettas and pogroms being carried out by our long-time columnist, and in his own published column...but, then, I suppose it is acceptable until your own ox is gored, no?

In the same vein, it is also interesting to see a pair of articles submitted by someone who has openly declared that FidoNet Policy is but merely a 'suggestion'...then acts to have that same Policy used to protect his own agenda.

One note: Didn't David Hallford publicly declare he would never return to FidoNet so long as Bob Kohl was in a coordinator post?

How odd, as well, that the happy neighbors of the late Roy Rogers have pulled up stakes and moved to Canada from California...but, then again, the same persons behind the move also have distinct problems in following Policy as well, so perhaps it is a good thing to keep them all together.

After all, trying and convicting people by the court of 'public opinion' is so much more convenient than getting both sides of a story.

In brighter news, Damian Walker has published election results in from Zone 2's recent elections...and we've published the first page of available Fido-Over-IP listings, since the Falcon site went 'dark' in Region 50.

And, with great appreciation and honor, I'd like to point out a new FidoNews site in Estonia, a former holding of the defunct Soviet Union, which is translating the FidoNews into the Estonian language. As well as the sister site in Sweden, we see two sysops willing to translate the FidoNews for their own members in their own languages.

Translation is a time-consuming and tedious prospect, especially to those who are not truly fluent in the other language; the efforts of these sysops should not go unrecognized, either within their own Zone or by FidoNet itself.

As with the other listed sites performing similar translations to present Fido information in native languages, it is an honor and privilege to see that those sites in the other Zones still observe the original mission of FidoNet... communication, at a lower cost and convenience to all.

Perhaps Zone 1 can learn from this before it allows politics to tear it apart, hmmmmm?

-zf-

### 30 ###