From: lowen@lorc.UUCP (Lamar Owen)
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Another fidonet regurgitation
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 11:18:35 EST
Organization: LORC Enterprises

larry@gator.rn.com (Larry Snyder) writes:
> lowen@lorc.UUCP (Lamar Owen) writes:
> >Hmmm... Yet Another Stereotype (TM). (YAS, for short.  Prounounced like 'yes
> 
> Based on facts my friend.  Take all of the major screwups with duplicate
> messages -- and the majority of which were caused by Fight-O-Net.

Admittedly, I am a small site.  However, I have not seen "massive" duplications
just from Fidonet sites.  I have seen a few dupes in the last while, about
half were from Fido.

> >4.) The International Zone Coordinator for The FidoNet does indeed care abou
> >the scope.  So do the other Zone Coordinators.  Ever read the Fido world
> >policy document?
> 
> which is political bullshit -- which would never work in the real
> work like usenet.  Policy complaint is pure bullshit.
> 
> If I don't like you, I'll file a PC.  If you don't like it, go up 
> one level.  If one level up agrees -- your history.  Bullshit.  Thank
> goodness with don't have crap like that here.

No, we have an oligarchy here.  That's right: Usenet is NOT an anarchy, but an
oligarchy.  Admittedly, within the ranks of the oligarchs there is anarchy
to a point...  Who are the oligarchs? The sysadmins, of course.  The sysadmins
of Usenet outnumber the "regular" users by a long margin.  And, as we all
well know, if the sysadmins don't like something (and can get their
collective head together on it :-)), then it gets canned.  Users or no users.

No, instead of the Fidonet PC stuff, we are faced with a single level complaint.
User foo@bar.edu calls baz@bang.com a name.  What can baz@bang.com do about it
in Usenet?  Have his/her admin talk to bar.edu's admin and see if a reprimand
can accomplish something.  That's it.  Use killfiles, often, is the usual 
recommendation.

With Fido, there is only one cardinal sin: being excessively annoying.  So,
Mutlu would be gone by now if this were Fidonet.  However, most infrequent
flamers would not.  Fido works just as well as Usenet in that regard--there
are plenty of heated discussions (like QWK versus BlueWave as an offline
reader format--that is a guaranteed melting pot), but less of the "annoying"
behavior that is found on Usenet--such as mail-bombs.

FYI: Fidonet has been around nearly as long as Usenet, with the first sites
being put up in '82-'83 time frame.  The software is mostly freeware stuff
(like cnews is for us).

There are plenty of technical problems in Fido--no argument there.  There are 
also technical problems in Usenet (like distributions, forged cancels, 
authenticity verification, etc).  The greatest advantage that RFC-1036
format messages have is that message-id that is guaranteed unique.  This is
Usenet's biggest technical advantage over Fido.

Fido has some advantages over Usenet as well, but since I am not as familiar
with FTN as I am with RFC-1036, I'll abstain from putting my foot in my
mouth. :-)

> >5.) Fido is standing at nearly 20,000 nodes these days.
> 
> amateur machines operated in bedrooms -- not that there is anything
> wrong with that -- but the typical usenet site is operated out of a large
> business (IRS, Bell South, AT&T, etc..)  

I really wonder what the demographics are Usenet vs Fidonet in those terms.
I know of large systems connected to Fido that are the sole income of their
admins.  Nothing in that realm as large as uunet, but that's a different
story.

Point-of-my-whole-argument: Simply flaming Fidonet in general due to a
perceived pattern without attempting a solution is not the way to go.  There
is no question that Fido's dupe checking can be improved (vastly), but let's
try to work it out instead of arguing (like I am right now!) about it.

> Larry Snyder                                    internet: larry@gator.rn.com
> keeper of the Gator                                  uucp: uunet!gator!larry


--

Lamar Owen, Systems Consultant, GE Lighting Systems, Hendersonville, NC
***********************************************************************
 Opinions expressed herein are the author's and do not reflect policy
   or opinions of the General Electric Company or its subsidiaries.
***********************************************************************
Xref: sparky news.admin.misc:324 talk.abortion:47757