Articles

• Announcement
• The nab is connected to the johnnie bone, the bobby bone is
• An Alternative to Empty Echos and Dross-Filled Internet

Announcement
by John Bodoni, 1:284/99

Greetings.

It has become apparent that there are two distinct schools of thought regarding mail movement within Zone 1. Some members of the North American Backbone (NAB) are unsatisfied with the direction the distribution system has taken, others are content with the way things are currently being handled.

The time has come for the two groups to part ways.

The Zone 1 Backbone has been formed.

Consisting of volunteers who are willing to be held to a group- defined standard of operation, the goal of the Zone 1 Backbone (Z1B) is to distribute echomail and echomail-routed-netmail as rapidly and reliably as possible.

For further information about the Z1B, feel free to connect to the Z1BACKBONE conference, which should soon be available at a distribution system near you.

John Bodoni
Zone 1 Backbone Coordinator

The nab is connected to the johnnie bone, the bobby bone is
By Bob Moravsik, the Southern Star

We have just witnessed an event that made no difference. Malcontent John John Souvestre resigned from his imaginary backbone and is posturing to start the JohnnyBone. Souvestre has been Fidonet's malconrent, ever since he tried to enforce boppy on everybody that carried a message with 396/1 in the seenbye. Needless to say most of his "dicta" have been laughed at. Now he wants to start another backbone of one and will take it upon himself to carry conferences when nobody asked that "his bone" carry them. Hence the Johnnybone has NO CONFERENCES unless he creates this fiction that the Johnnybone will carry all conferences unless asked not to.

All moderators might want to carefully thinkout the wisdom of carrying conferences on the Johnnybone. Remember, if this guy don't get his way, he gets very vindictive. He's dropped conferences before on a whim. If the Johnnybone doesn't carry any conferences, the nodes linked to the Johnnybone will SIMPLY route around the Johnnybone. Its been done before.

The Johnnybone will have one conference for the Johnny groupies. The rest will be swiped from the FidoSpine or the BWP bone. (Or is it BW bone...hmmmmm). We are all awaiting the unilateral proclamation from the Johnnybone on its officiality. The real question on peoples minds is what "council" can this guy latch onto to fake you all into believe he's "official".

We wait with unrelenting glee for this posturing.

Regards Bob

An Alternative to Empty Echos and Dross-Filled Internet Newsgroups
by Steve Quarrella, 1:124/9005 or fishpope@iname.com

These days, folks are running off to the Internet in droves. Well, I like the Internet as much as the next guy, but there is one area where I think Fidonet absolutely beats the tar out of the Internet. That's our message echos. It is a constant annoyance to me to go into a certain newsgroup, looking for chatter or information, only to find it overrun by career flame artists, spammers, bullies, idle chatterers, and other destructive persons whose goal in life appears to be to suck the life out of the newsgroup and scare everybody off.

While there ARE Internet alternatives, like moderated newsgroups and -- don't forget this one -- private mailing lists, I like to think our Fidonet echos are a wonderful alternative for folks who just like to talk. I started my system because I liked participating in the echos, and I've always liked to think that anybody who shared the same interest would feel at home here at 1:124/9005. We've got many conferences, covering a broad number of topics, and most are governed by reasonable people and guidelines that spare us from the aforementioned destructive behaviour. Unfortunately, many of these conferences once had double digit per day traffic -- some of my favourites were MST3K, MUSIC, and ZYMURGY -- and they have since shrivelled up and have become shades of their former selves. I personally moderate several echos whose readership has declined, for various reasons, and I don't care to see those conferences disappear into the wind.

There is an opportunity for us to have our cake and eat it, too. It's not a big secret, many folks are doing it, but it's time to spread the word. I can't beat 'em, so I'll join 'em, in the form of a private, Internet mailing list that originates from Fidonet. I have managed to breathe new life into some echos that faced certain extinction or crippling injuries due to the disappearance from the conference of the chatterboxes who made the echo worthwhile, and who kept things alive, just by doing what comes naturally.

Alec Grynspan (1:2424/224, alec@gryn.com) has been kind enough to gate several of my echos to the Internet as mailing lists. As moderator, I still retain a modicum of control over the echo -- users are effectively users on Alec's system, and they cannot haphazardly subscribe and unsubscribe -- while at the same time, I have opened up the echo to people who might not otherwise have access to a local Fidonet node. The most important thing is that the conference remains a Fidonet echo, and the talk keeps happening. This has had a tremendous effect on an echo like HOLYSMOKE -- I have one reader who wouldn't have a chance in hell of reading the echo over in Qatar -- and I've gotten a message from one reader of MOORCOCK who prefers the Fidonet echo to the spam-filled alt.books.moorcock. Sounds like a win-win scenario for all involved.

If this sounds like an appealing way to kickstart your conference, drop Alec a line at one of the addresses I mentioned. Maybe we can get enough folks interested that Alec will need a secretary to handle the requests. :)

--Steve Quarrella
Moderator of A_THEIST, CONCORD, HOLYSMOKE, MOORCOCK, and WHO.