From: Jim.Greenlee@cc.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: atl.general
Subject: Re: A few questions about Fido
Date: 17 Dec 92 13:44:38 GMT
Reply-To: Jim.Greenlee@cc.gatech.edu
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Regarding "A few questions about Fido", deitch@gisatl.FIDONET.ORG wrote:
> No, FidoNet users, such as myself, post to usenet newsgroups because
> we have the right and technology to access a public forum such as this.

I don't think anybody is questioning your "right" to post (at least,
I didn't read this in the portion of Jan's message that you quoted).
Any person who has access to the technology has the "right" to post
(personally, I don't consider it a "right" but that's a subject for
another thread).

> For some reason, based on this and your personal mail, you hold a
> grudge against me personally or FidoNet in general.  You decry my
> signature, but ignore the fact that signatures originated in the
> Internet.

I don't know about the first point, but as far as the second is
concerned, I believe it's a matter of the *length* of the signature.
The "accepted" length of a signature file on USENET is four lines -
at some sites this is enforced by restrictions built into the news
software itself. Four lines is usually sufficient to provide some
personal information about the poster (full name, E-mail/postal
address, phone number, etc). Some people also add a clever aphorism.

It is generally considered Bad Form to regularly use a > 4 line
signature, and particularly so when the only reason for the excessive
length appears to be for the inclusion of some "cute" ASCII picture.
It's kind of silly to tack a 10 line signature onto the end of  a 3
line article - if a significant number of people do this, then the S/N
ratio and data throughput are greatly reduced (DOTNP, Film @ 11:00).
Some people pay Real Money for this stuff, and there's no reason to
force them to foot the bill for propagating someone's artwork.

I don't know what the "accepted" practices are on FIDO-Net - if they
want to use 20 line signatures on their posts, then more power to
them. But if Mr. Deitch is going to gateway stuff onto the Internet,
then he should respect its customs ("when in Rome ...").

> You are undoubtably upset about FidoNet network routing information
> while seeing the UUCP header information in each post as normal.

Somehow, I don't think an ASCII graphic of a dog with his supper dish
qualifies as "FidoNet network routing information". I could be wrong
though ...

> What you do not want to understand is that I post here because this
> newsgroup is for general Atlanta discussion.  And as a native of
> Atlanta, I want to discuss Atlanta generally.

There is nothing wrong with this - I'm a native Atlantan myself (32
years and counting). But it does seem kind of pointless to post local
weather information on a local newsgroup. I think it would be a safe
assumption that people with direct access to the atl.* groups also
have some reasonable way of determining what the current weather
conditions are (sticking my head out the window works for *me* :-).

The original message was posted from California (presumably by someone
who is planning a trip to this area and wants to know what to pack).
An E-mailed response is probably a better choice in that situation.

-JimG