From: elendil@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Edward J. Branley)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs
Subject: Re: Fidonet sux, fee for access. (was Sad to say...)
Keywords: Fidonet
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 92 07:30:58 CDT
Organization: Minas Tirith BBS (Public Access Usenet for New Orleans)

murph@buscard.fidonet.org (Brian Murphy) writes:

> Hi, gents!  Mind if I join in?  (special hello to E.J. Branley)

Hey Murph!  I tried to send you mail a while back and it bounced.  I'll try
again off of this article...

> In a later message, either Larry or Edward mentions that they had to support
> their Fidonet NEC's phone bill for echomail (newsgroups).  In my experience,
> this shouldn't have been necessary.  I don't know how it is down in Louisiana
> but in New England, most of Fidonet's nodes are local calls to one another.
> With a proper routing scheme in place, the mail could have hopped from one
> node to the next without long-distance phone calls.

You're a bit denser in popluation up there.  There's a major ld expense hopping
over the TX-LA border, such that it's cheaper for someone in metro New Orleans
to call Houston or Dallas, then have the other LA boards poll that one.  It's
the best situation given tarriffs and such.  I don't fault the system, but I
can do without the network...

>
> It was my opinion that these amateur hobbyists would have jumped at the chanc
> to really get into their hobby and configure their systems to do this kind of
> routing to keep the costs down.  Nope!  All I got as I debated the point was
> that "it's only a hobby" and they shouldn't be expected to get that detailed.
> <sigh>  I then pointed out that they have Coordinators who volunteer to do
> that kind of work.  The Coordinators then pointed out that they had too much
> to do as they were involved in extraneous duties as also serving as file
> distributors, echo distributors, other networks... on and on.

You've hit the nail on the head.  Many sysops these days are amateurs but not
hobbyists.  Maybe if you had some ex-phreakers or at least a couple of guys who
knew something about how the phone system works, what you're looking for
shouldn't be impossible.

>
> After suggesting that they remove some of those extra "hats" to get down to
> the business of _coordinating,_ suggesting that they were lazy, incompetent,
> or just greedy for wanting others to pay for unnecessary long-distance
> charges, I was kicked out.   :-)
>
> I don't like Fidonet except that it was fun screwing around with the software
> to provide a gateway between Fidonet and the Internet.  I also enjoyed trying
> to find ways to increase the efficiency of Fidonet and debating the finer
> points of routing.  I was the epitome of the network-dude (dweeb?).

hehehe...yup, the software is fun, until you start with this stuff.  Of course,
there's less messing with routing here.  I still enjoy messing with my two
machines at home.  Anybody ever heard of an nntp server that runs on DOS? <g>.

>
> I was amused to find how dogmatic that network can be with their own politics
> They have system operator echos where operators can talk among themselves to
> iron out mutual networking bugs.  Come to find out, those echos are only
> chit-chat echos for the "old boy" elite where anyone daring to raise serious
> topics gets flamed for their efforts.  The final blow for me came when one of
> these "old boys" raised a "Policy Complaint" that I wouldn't drop the subject
> matter and shut up.  I thought that was swell!  :-)  Instead of cutting the
> feed of that echo by the moderator, the "old boys" simply dropped a sincere
> node.
>
> Yes, I'm appealing the decision using the appeals process outlined in their
> Policy.  It says I have a "right to a speedy decision" in that within 30 days
> each level shall render a decision.  While they use their Policy to drop me
> from Fidonet, they disregard that same Policy when it comes to making their
> decision upon appeal.  Every level has taken beyond the requisite 30 days -
> even the very top level - the Zone Coordinator.  He's had the appeal for a
> month and a half and preemptorily involves the Regional Coordinators, the
> final step while denying me the ZC level of appeal as he tries to reach a
> "concensus."
>
> Blah.  I'm rambling.  I'm just glad I've "matured" into the Internet.
>
> I pay a small fee to my Internet host and am passing this cost along to my
> users.  It's much more professional this way.  I expect and receive great
> service.  This efficiency is appreciated by my users where they are happy to
> pay my token fee.  Yes, there is a LOT of Fido boards in my neck of the woods
> but NONE of them are run as professionally as my humble system.
>

The politics in fido can be a real bear.  Nothing beats net.anarchy, IMHO.



|Edward J. Branley                         elendil@mintir.New-Orleans.LA.US|
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