F I D O N E W S -- Vol.12 No. 2 (09-Jan-1995) +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | A newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews" BBS | | _ | +1-519-570-4176 | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | Small animal psychology and | | (_| /_) | Spiritual guidance Department: | | _`@/_ \ _ | Rev. Richard Visage 1:163/409 | | | | \ \\ | | | | (*) | \ )) | Editor: | | |__U__| / \// | Donald Tees 1:221/192 | | _//|| _\ / | Sylvia Maxwell 1:221/194 | | (_/(_|(____/ | Tim | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Submission address: editors 1:1/23 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MORE addresses: | | | | Don -- don@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca | | Tim Pozar -- pozar@kumr.lns.com | | David Deitch -- 1:133/411.411, deitch@gisatl.fidonet.org | | | submissions=> editor@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | For information, copyrights, article submissions, | | obtaining copies of fidonews or the internet gateway faq | | please refer to the end of this file. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ======================================================================== Table of Contents ======================================================================== 1. Editorial..................................................... 2 2. Articles...................................................... 3 An International Aid Campaign for FidoNet!.................. 3 Dear Reverend Visage,....................................... 4 Finding Message Bases the Users Will Use.................... 6 Subject: Gary Wilkerson..................................... 7 Subject: FidoNet Hong Kong Goes To The Dogs!................ 9 Backbone Echo Changes [Nov-Dec]............................. 11 From: tony.seifart@electro.alt.za (Tony Seifart)............ 13 Reply to Advert of IM_HELP.................................. 14 Upcoming Area Code changes.................................. 14 North American Area Code Changes............................ 16 dr.mdm.em................................................... 24 3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 24 FidoNews 12-02 Page: 2 09 Jan 1995 ======================================================================== Editorial ======================================================================== We have a problem here at 221/192. People send us mail under all sorts of names ... letters to "Don", "Max", or "Fidonews". Unfortunately, none of those names exist as users of this BBS. Before editing the snooze, Ex_Libris BBS operated under quite stringent privacy rules. I had it set up so that *nobody*, including myself, could read mail not addressed to them. With the snooze, I had to change that. Mail was being lost as nobody saw letters not addressed to a specific person. So I changed it so that the sysop (Max or I) could read all net mail. The long and the short of it is that I am changing it back. I do not *want* to see anybody elses mail, and for all that one says about the enter key, if it is scrolling by you cannot help but see the letters. So from this point on, mail to the snooze is going to have to be addressed to "Donald Tees", "Sylvia Maxwell", or "Editor" for us to get it. "Editor" is set up as an alias, and will get to both of us. All three names are as in the nodelist. Netmail not addressed to one of the three will simply sit in my message base until it scrolls off the end a few weeks later. Speaking of the page down key, I have been reading a terrible lot of posts over the past few weeks screaming about a certain fundamentalist being allowed back into Fidonet. Funnily enough, many of them are by the same people that scream loudest when someone suggests us censoring the snooze. I am not a fan of Steve Winter. He has been the source of much unpleasantness here. Nevertheless, I find that I agreed strongly with Mr. Peace, and his statement regarding allowing Mr. Winter back in. His statement that inclusion in the nodelist is not contingent upon social acceptability rang true. It is a statement that truly expresses the spirit of Fidonet. Twit filters are common. Dropping an echo is a simple thing. Maybe we should all remember just what this net is about, and put Mr. Winter behind us. On a final note, I was thinking this week that I keep hearing the term "fidogods", used in the sense of "the people that run the net". Now anybody that has been around for a bit realizes that nobody runs the net: it just keeps going through the fudges of 32,000 people. However, it would be nice to learn a bit more about the people that do some of the work. I am therefore asking for a volunteer. I want somebody to start writing to "fidogods", and start a series of articles FidoNews 12-02 Page: 3 09 Jan 1995 about the people in fidonet. Short bio's. If we can get a volunteer, and people are not too shy, then we could start running one per week as a feature. Anybody up to it? ======================================================================== Articles ======================================================================== An International Aid Campaign for FidoNet! You Can Contribute to FidoNet's Growth Worldwide A Call for Help Since the day I worked to start up the Latin American franchise of FidoNet back in 1987 while living in my home town of Buenos Aires, Argentina, I have been involved in numerous projects related to the network, from acting as Zone coordinator for two years, to helping the network expand throughout numerous countries during the several years after I stepped down. Recently, I was able to get in touch with a sysop in the city of Guantanamo, Cuba, who wants to join FidoNet and begin a network of FidoNet systems throughout the island. However, the financial difficulties they face, which he described, are like none I have heard before in almost seven years of fidonetting. There is an absolute lack of computer equipment in Cuba to support the installation of FidoNet nodes. There are, however, machines at the general public's reach, that can be used to communicate with bulletin board systems. The BBS in Guantanamo that would like to join FidoNet runs on an XT clone with 640K of RAM, a 20 meg hard drive and a 2400 baud modem with MNP5. Remembering that the first two 9600 modems we installed in Zone 4 were donated to us when we couldn't acquire/afford them in Argentina (one of them was TJ's old Trailblazer, put to much better use after hanging around in his garage for a while), I phoned Gamey Garcia (the ZC4) and we decided to appeal to everyone in the general FidoNet population who can and wishes to collaborate with the start up of FidoNet in beleaguered Cuba. In the first stage of this aid project, what we need is to collect equipment to be sent to our contact in Cuba, a researcher and pioneer sysop at the National Academy of Science, who is presently setting up the first FidoNet node in the island. He will also act as a distribution point there to forward whatever material we can get to them, to other people who wish to install nodes in the island. The kind of equipment we need is in many cases considered outdated or "slow" to many of us but would be of immense value to these folks in Cuba. Stuff like 286 motherboards and RAM, hard drives, modems that you no longer use, are the kind of equipment you could donate to help FidoNet get started in Cuba. We will be assembling a first batch of hardware in the coming weeks, and will send it to them so that they can put it to good use. FidoNews 12-02 Page: 4 09 Jan 1995 In a second phase of this donation effort, once these guys have at least one system with a bit more processing and storage capacity, we will try to get a few generous FidoNet software developers to donate software to this and other Cuban sysops who really can't afford it. It will perhaps be interesting for you all to know that this donation campaign is being organized with absolute disregard of the politics that may affect Cuba or other countries. FidoNet has been, for a decade now, an independent, volunteer-driven organization and this will be the same in Cuba as it's being set up. This donation campaign is an opportunity for all of us to really show what the FidoNet spirit is, of free communication, goodwill and cooperation amongst ourselves. As I mentioned before, most Cubans are virtually isolated from the rest of the world due to the hard economic conditions they are living under. I couldn't help but ask the sysop in Guantanamo, a scientist, what he makes for a monthly salary, and it took me a little while to understand that the $2.31 he makes are not hourly or daily, but MONTHLY. These people have the knowledge and will to participate in our electronic community, and there is a way for all of us to help them join us! If you're interested in collaborating in any way with helping to the installation of FidoNet in Cuba please let us know. You can write to me at 2:343/111, or to Gamey Garcia at 4:970/1. Those in Zone 1 can also find me at 1:10/100. Thanks a lot for reading this, and hope you can contribute to this effort! Pablo Kleinman, 2:343/111@fidonet Barcelona, Spain ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Snoozgods, Please indicate that the following article is submitted by Charles Herriot of 1:163/110 so that poor Dallas isn't confused again. It arrived, reeking of krill and kelp, which probably means that it has spent too long floating on the tides. Roll 'da flic, Sylvia.... Swamp Swine Magazine, Shuckmagosh, Ohio Dear Reverend Visage, It has been a slow week for news in this part of Fidoland. This is surely just the calm before the storm as we patiently count down the deathwatch on Rick "Half of you go to that net, half to the other, and the rest of you come FidoNews 12-02 Page: 5 09 Jan 1995 with me" Johnston's last 38 days in office. This, of course, assumes that Bob "Bob" Satti doesn't intervene to make Johnston RC-For-Life. I would discount the probability of this happening were it not for that fact that Bob "Bob" Satti clearly needs at least one other person in Fidoland who appreciates his lowslung approach to genius. Net250 has refused a nodenumber to a BBS operated by The Heritage Front. Who'd had thought that the happy band of fanatics in net250 would suddenly become discerning in the choice of company they keep? I didn't snicker, really I didn't, when I heard that net250 refused admittance on the grounds that The Heritage Front was prone to disseminate hate literature. This is surely a sign that no one in net250 actually reads their own venomous ravings in their sysop echo. Since I am already three paragraphs into this puppy, and have probably lost the interest of both people who actually read the Snooz, it is safe to insert a shameless non-commercial plug for the BURL echo. To those who may not know this, when we are not dynamiting fish in a barrel in the regional echos, occasionally we produce works of fiction which are serialized and sent out as echomail. A new epic is about to begin on January 15th. Discriminating sysops may wish to netmail the sysop of 1:163/110 and insist upon receiving a feed. (Special note to Johnny "President of Commodore Computer Club" Hart : Dear Heart, even though the tagname is BURL, this is *not*, I repeat *not*, an echo devoted to reminiscing about the late Burl Ives so please withhold your sniveling about off-topic messages.) Dooya think that you could be a bit more selective in your choice of xmas presents? I am sure the lawn will be a much happier lawn when spring arrives, but the sixteen truckloads of sheep manure that were deposited on my doorstep has made the neighbours jealous. As a token of my appreciation, I am sending over a small flight of Carmelite nuns carrying badly tuned acoustic guitars. I must go, Visage, your secretary is keening in a most feverish way and this has really nothing at all to do with the fact that the three-toed sloth has started to lash her with its tongue. Sheesh, you'd think that she would learn to be more tolerant towards my smallish collection of pets. Regards, Doc Logger, Fulaga Island, South Pacific FidoNews 12-02 Page: 6 09 Jan 1995 Finding Message Bases the Users Will Use by Kay Shapero 1:102/524 Here you've got this big wonderful bbs with nifty graphics, multiple lines and message areas from FIDOnet to the Internet, covering practically every subject known to mankind, and nobody seems to be at all interested. What MORE can you do, you ask? Well... maybe you should drop some echoes. Paradoxical as it might seem, having to sift through pages and pages of echoes to find one of interest is probably more off-putting than simply not finding just the right echo available when the potential user first logs on. If you've got plenty of echoes available, and people aren't posting much, a bit of weeding is probably in order. First, figure out which echoes you are personally interested in and involved with (this will usually include those that match the theme, if any, of your bbs). These, of course, you keep. Second, track the other echoes for a couple of months and see which echoes are getting posts from your bbs. Keep these too. Third, while you're tracking for posts, also check to see which of the other echoes people are reading. Keep any of those which are read-only, and if there are any other echoes which get a lot of readership even though nobody posts, consider keeping them if you have room. Fourth, drop any echo that is not getting read by anybody, and poll your readership on those that are being read but not posted to. Drop any that the users don't really seem interested in. If you guess wrong, it's easy enough to get them back. Fifth, now that you're down to those echoes that folks are actually USING, you have some idea of the interests of your users. (Assuming you're using a phone feed instead of Planet Connect you should also have a lower phone bill, less unpacking time, more available space and a happier hub who will also have the above gains.) If you only have a few echoes left, don't panic but instead take a look at whatever echoes are available in the net or nets you use (for FIDOnet, try FIDONET.NA or the Elist which includes some things not backboned) and see which echoes may be out there that relate to those already in use. Pick up a few of them, and try them out over a few months. If nobody's reading, get