Articles

• BBS Documentary In The Works
• Zone 2 participation of FidoNews

BBS Documentary In The Works
By Jason Scott
Submitted by Dallas Hinton

Come help tell the story of the BBS in a Documentary currently being planned.

It all started with collecting ASCII.

Jason Scott runs a website dedicated to textfiles from BBSes of the 1980's, called "textfiles.com". With over 30,000 files and growing, it has gained a lot of interest from folks who have been involved in the history of the dial-up BBS. As time has gone on, textfiles from the 1970's, 1990's and even the present have creeped in, and there's very little you can't find there.

Sometime in early 2001, Jason noticed that a lot of these files had the phone numbers of BBSs they came from, and he had an idea: Why not try to make a huge list of every BBS there ever was? The idea was just too cool to put aside, and a month later, bbslist.textfiles.com was born; a website with over 90,000 BBS numbers spanning the entire history of the BBS. With the assistance of the Fidonet Nodelists, the site is brimming with information, and allows people to update the information Jason's tracked down with their own comments and embellishments.

This turned out to be just the kind of site that made Jason a lightning rod for decades of BBS Sysops who remembered their times running their BBSes, and for current sysops letting Jason know the fun was far from over. After a couple hundred e-mails, Jason figured there was a story to tell, and the BBS Documentary was born.

The website is located at: http://www.bbsdocumentary.com

There, you can read Jason's pitch, see his plans, read the research he's done so far, and help get involved, either by being interviewed or helping correct any facts that are missing or incomplete. There's lots to do, and Jason's spending the next few years on this project, so get involved!

(Author: Jason Scott)

Cheers, Dallas

ZONE 2 PARTICIPATION OF FIDONEWS.
By: Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555,
pa0mmv@vrza.org

Dear FidoNews editor,

It is no secret that the Snooze is largely dominated by contributions from zone 1. I noted that you encourage articles from other zones, albeit without much success.

Why do we see so few contributions from other zones? Zone 2 in particular? It counts about ten times as many sysops and who knows how many points. The main reason for the zone 1 domination of FidoNews is imho the fact that it ... is zone 1 dominated. The cure would be to discourage articles that are only of zone 1 local interest. In the past we have seen many an increase in the volume of FidoNews due to some local event. Last year it was the Z1C election, just to mention an example. Why? Why do the sysops in zone 1 flood the world with what for many of us this side of the pond is no more than bickering among the locals? Why can't they be content with discussing it in an appropriate echomail conference like we do when matters of local interest are to be discussed? How would you feel if the German sysops (forming a region bigger than zone 1) started using the snooze as a playground for their petty bickering over an RC24 election? I confess that on several occasions I have hit the "quit reading FidoNews" key after exclaiming "Oh no, not another article from someone not pleased with the way things go in the Z1C election process!

The snooze is zone 1 dominated because potential contributors from other zones are put off by the zone 1 dominance. A vicious circle. Maybe you as editor should ask what the readers outside zone 1 are NOT interested in seeing in the snooze. My list would be:

1. Articles that cover topics of only local interest, such as RC and ZC elections. They stir some interest but after the third round it gets very boring.
2. Articles in a language I can not read. The idea may be good but it is not going to work. The only examples of successful multilangual magazines I have seen are the fodder that airline companies feed us to keep our thoughts from hitting the ground at a vertical speed higher than the landing gear can take.
3. "Tear jerkers" as Sharon Westons' "The warmth of a smile." Maybe in NA culture such stories are an unconditional 'go', but imnsho it belongs in the Salvation Army's Digest or whatever it is called. My response when I see it in FidoNews is: "What's it got to do with FidoNet?

I respect the tradition of FidoNews editors to publish anything not in violation of the (NA?) law. Maybe it is time however to review this policy. Maybe it is time to define the topic of FidoNews and restrict articles to those that are on topic.

Regards,

Michiel van der Vlist