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• FidoNet Zone One Election
• ECHO TALK - BBSes on the Internet

Fidonet Zone One
Coordinator Election

This process will consist of five phases..

Phase 1: Nomination
Phase 2: Discussion
Phase 3: Regional Discussions
Phase 4: Voting By RCC
Phase 5: Installation of new ZC1

Phase 1 - Nominations

When

From 0000 hrs On 05/30/1999
To 2359 hrs on 06/12/1999
All times EDT

Which Echo

Z1_ELECTION.. All nominations to be made publicly.

Who may run for ZC1.

Any Fidonet Sysop In Zone One who is listed in NODELIST.141.

Who may not run for ZC1.

Myself (election coordinator)
Any sysop not physically located in Zone One or not listed in NODELIST.141.

Candidate qualifications.

Candidates to be considered for the ZC1 position, should:

1. Possess good people/communication skills and be fair and open minded towards a wide and diverse zonal audience.
2. Possess a working knowledge and understanding of Fidonet Policy v4.07.
3. 'HAVE' the time or be able to set aside time in order to perform the duties required of the position. If the candidate is out of town a lot due to professional or personal obligations, then this candidate may want to reconsider said candidacy.

Who may nominate.

Any Zone One sysop who is in the nodelist as of NODELIST.141.

Each sysop may nominate only one individual including themselves.

Process.

1. For a nominee to be considered a valid ZC1 candidate s/he must meet the criteria outlined for candidates.
2. Nominations will consist of three phases:
   1. Initial and qualifying nomination, either by themselves or by another sysop who is qualified to nominate.
   2. A seconded nomination by another qualified sysop.
   3. Upon successful first and seconded nominations, the nominee must then 'accept' the nomination.
3. Nominations are valid if made and accepted between 12:00am on the start of the nomination phase and 11:59pm on the end of the nomination phase, all times Eastern.

Phase 2 - Discussions

When

From 0000 hrs On 06/13/1999
To 2359 hrs on 06/26/1999
All times EDT

Discussion Phase.

The discussion phase will be conducted publicly in the Z1_ELECTION echo, All interested sysops are urged to partake and solicit answers from the pool of available candidates garnered during the nomination phase.

Z1_ELECTION will be moderated by Joe Jared, he will be charged with keeping the discussions on a civil level and he will not tolerate flaming, spamming or any other behavior in which the process is disturbed or otherwise impeded.

The discussion phase is a process in which candidates can be called upon (or can volunteer) to put forth or defend their positions or philosophies on various Fidonet related issues. Their answers can be used to assist you in determining which candidates have the fitness to serve as ZC1.

Candidates should avoid at all costs the practice of slinging mud at another candidate, if for no other reason than the preservation of credibility.

Please be mindful that the candidates were nominated by those who thought the nominee could benifit Fidonet. Furthermore the candidates accepted said nominations because they think that they can help Fidonet. Having said this, no candidate is setting out with an agenda to destroy Fidonet or the world.. <g> Please leave these types of accusatory innuendos or personality conflicts somewhere else, they will not have a role in this election.

Phase 3 - Regional Discussions

When

From 0000 hrs On 06/27/1999
To 2359 hrs on 07/03/1999
All times EDT

Getting input to your RC.

This phase will involve you at the local net level informing your NC as to whom you would like to see as ZC1 out of the pool of available candidates based on personal preference and what information you gathered from Phase 2. In turn your NC will take this information and pass it onto your RC, who will then use this information to cast the appropriate vote during Phase 4.

To avoid the appearance of improprieties, all discussions relating to the election process either in this phase or phases 1 & 2, should be conducted publicly. Only use netmail/email methods if time constraints are evident and it would appear that echo lag would prevent you from getting your preference to your NC on time.

Phase 4 - Voting Process

When

From 0000 hrs On 07/04/1999
To 2359 hrs on 07/10/1999 (or earlier if 10 votes recorded prior)
All times EDT

Voting By the RCC.

Voting on the available pool of candidates will be conducted by the RCC in the privately distributed Z1REGCON echo.

Phase 5 - Installment

Installing new ZC1.

The installment process of the new ZC1 will commence without delay upon the announcement of the winner. The outgoing ZC1 will work with the new one to transfer over control files, coordinate links changes and bring him or her up tp speed on policy matters and procedures associated with the position. The outgoing ZC1 will make sure the incoming ZC1 is properly introduced to the ZCC and the Zone One RCC as well as making sure s/he is linked to all appropriate admin echoes and is properly echoing the Zone one admin echoes. As soon as the outgoing ZC1 is confident that the incoming ZC1 has all the tools and such to perform the position, the outgoing ZC1 will install the incoming ZC1 into the nodelist and the incoming ZC1 will immediately assume the duties and responsibilities of the position upon the issuance of that nodelist update. The incoming ZC1's term shall not begin until s/he is reflected as such in the nodelist.

Technicalities

If only one candidate.

Goto Phase 5, sole nominee will win by acclamation.

Voting protocol in phase 4.

Scenario 1 - two candidates:

A candidate must receive a simply majority of 50% + 1 of all votes cast to be declared a winner. If all 10 RC's cast a vote, a minimum majority would be 6 votes. If any RC fails to cast a vote, then the minimum majority will be calculated from the total votes recorded.

In the event of a tie vote under this scenario, the outgoing ZC1, shall cast the deciding vote in order for a winner to be declared.

Scenario 2 - three or more candidates:

A candidate must receive the 50% + 1 votes as outlined in scenario one. If one of these candidates does receive a simple majority, we have a winner.

But for example if we have 3 candidates:

Candidate 1 receives 4
Candidate 2 receives 4
Candidate 3 receives 2

No single candidate received a majority vote.

Candidate 3 will be removed from the running, we will then repeat phase 4 with only 2 candidates.

Scenario 3 - scenario 2 with a twist:

Same criteria as in scenario 2, but:

Candidate 1 received 4
Candidate 2 received 3
Candidate 3 received 3

The outgoing ZC1 will cast a deciding vote for candidate 2 or 3, then the candidate with the least votes is dismissed, then scenario one is reached and phase 4 repeated.

Scenario 4 - More than three candidates:

The spirit of scenarios 2 & 3 is applicable, if no single candidate receives a majority, two candidates with the most votes are singled out to reach scenario one and phase 4 is repeated with the 2 surviving candidates.

ECHO TALK
BBSes on the Internet

ECHO TALK
Food for thought from Fido's echomail.
Purloined without permission by D Myers

Ed Williams presents a different view on the subject of BBSes on the Internet. This is extracted from his message to Lynda Kendrick in the echo FN_SYSOP.

LK> Ed, I enjoyed reading your message about how we as BBS
LK> sysop's do have a way of joining the Internet with our BBS's
LK> ..But how do we do that? I am very interested!

Joining the Internet with our BBS's......ME? I would never propose such a thing, for various reasons. A few of which I'll touch on below.

Anyone who hitches their proverbial "Star" to the Internet is in for a sad awakening in a few years. As communications systems become more and more evolved, the phone systems will take on a considerable appeal, and well the Internet will be your "junk mail" drawer again, but I will grant you it will be a neat one.

The "traditional dial up" phone line will be around for quite some time. The rates and way we do things will change dramatically I'm sure. But the internet is what it is, and it's not a phone service.

I laugh at the memories now, of people complaining that for all it's glory, windows 3.1 is just a shell for DOS.

Much the same thing can be said for what "people" are doing with the internet. For all it's wonders, it's just a shell for the phone companies. Once it makes that change over to an "independent" system, well the world's going to see a huge improvement over the internet.

There's just too much wrong with it now, and the things wrong with it for us BBS's are just not in the interests of those people making the Internet. XML has promise for what us BBS'ers want, but it's not quite the same, and it's applications are far from a menu driven programming language.

While I do believe that the Internet is a wondrous place for "artists, businesses, tech support, and scientific exchange", we have polluted it with enough "Crap" that these gem's are increasingly hard to find. All too often someone goes to the net to find one thing, and ends up being distracted by half a dozen others. Before he knows it, he's out of time, the kids are begging to be tucked in, and life has passed him by.

It's not people's fault really. Heck even trying to find a tech support answer on the net takes longer to find on the net (that's if you know the address to look at) than it would to just call up their phone support systems. But we foolishly believe the promise of quick and easy tech support, and yet we wait for E-Mails 2-3 day's out with our answer. I'd like to see anyone wait 2-3 day's on the phone.

So as I was saying, it's not their fault, we as people have a variety of things we find interesting, and the Internet can bring bits and pieces of almost all of them at once. Say you're interested in Jupiter, you could spend a year searching all of the jupiter stuff and get no where. We foolishly believe that as long as we look a little, we understand enough of the topic to satisfy our interest. But we get half hazard information in bits and pieces that never quite make sense, no one help's us to sort out really or discusses with us, and keep looking or give up the search. We are being molded to put up with crap.

BBS's though do not play that silly little game with our callers minds. Not a bit. We keep to a single topic or two for our BBS's, we have several people helping us keep track of the latest news, people who meet, chat, write messages regularly, and more.

Instead of throwing "info" at people, we put them into "interest communities". And who cares if a BBS doesn't have "Everything you ever needed to know about subject A", someone, maybe you can get new stuff, discuss it and share it with the same people who are not being constantly distracted by the maze of "info bits" out there in Interpolated.

Every Sysop who uses the Internet to run a BBS on, and does not provide a "Dial up Connection" is a sysop with a constantly roving clientele. Regardless of whether he runs a fine BBS or a sloppy one. This may be interesting, but it is not why people call BBS's.

Beware the Borg, they have nifty technology, but they have no souls.

BBS's are wondrous things, which I predict will blossom over the next few years, and as technology improves, people move farther and farther out into the country side, and work at home becomes a larger standard, and the service industry takes hold, that nearly everyone will run a BBS of some type. But they'll probably settle for a nifty "Phone Banner" menu for the most part.

I love technology, I love what it will do for us. But this internet thing isn't where BBS's need to be getting "callers" from. Advertise it there, use it to get software easily distributed to call your BBS, put newsletters there so people can check it from any computer quickly. But don't get users from the net, get them when they're at home, on their own computer, and want to be on your system.