Editorial

Where Are We Going?
Doug Myers

Perhaps this week's editorial is in the same vein as last week's, but with a touch of yellow journalism. I'm about to utter blasphemies which, perhaps, will bring the Fidonet Elders from their chambers tearing their robes from their chest.

The BBS as we know it is a dying animal - it's not coming back in the old form we grew to know and love. Why not? Simply because we'll attract no users again - they'll log onto their ISP and play on the Internet even if they know about BBSes. Why not? The graphics are better than we ever dreamed about at the height of BBSing, the variety of activity is greater than we individual sysops could ever supply, and some areas such as e-business - which can transform lifestyle - were never even possible with BBSes.

This means that Fidonet can't survive as it is presently structured - a network of sysops. If we sysops can't attract users, then we'll have nothing to do and will eventually drift off... and our network will eventually whither.

Oh, I'm not totally negative here - just trying to address realities. What it all means is that we've got to redefine ourselves to continue on. What we had was great - the sense of community in particular was never, in my humble opinion, never exceeded even by today's Internet. We've got to find a new role for ourselves where we can function in the new paradigms.

I don't have answers here, I can merely point out some directions. I'm hoping some of the readers can take these directions and make something of them (or possibly point out my errors).

First of all, we've got to operate on the Internet in a new way. Our current efforts are good, in that they enable us to move mail and files which would probably be impossible if we tried to operate strictly through the conventional telephone system. What we don't do much of right now is to attract new users in the way they are able to operate - with a plain old preconfigured WEB browser. Somehow we've got to create WEB sites with the taste and feel of the old BBSes, drawing at least a small group of users back time after time just for the sense of community.

Can we do it? I don't know. How about you folks telling me?