F I D O N E W S -- Volume 15, Number 33 17 August 1998 +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet community | "FidoNews" | | _ | +27-41-515-913 [5:5/23] | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | | | (_| /_) | | | _`@/_ \ _ | | | | | \ \\ | Editor: | | | (*) | \ )) | Henk Wolsink 5:7104/2 | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Submission address: FidoNews Editor 5:5/23 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MORE addresses: | | | | submissions=> editor@fidonews.org | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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 ................................................ 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 3. ADVERTISE YOUR FREE SERVICE/EVENT ........................ 5 Announcing the WRESTLING_CHAT Echo ....................... 5 4. NOTICES .................................................. 6 5. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 7 6. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 10 FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 1 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Dear Readers, This is the first issue prepared in Zone 5. Well in the City of Port Elizabeth on the Southern tip of Africa. It's currently winter here, raining and not to pleasant. Allow me to thank Zorch Frezberg for having looked after FidoNews for the past and in trusting me with being your new editor. Thanks Zorch. As happens normally with the first issue from a new editor, there ain't much to be written, but I'll tell you a bit more about myself in later issue(s). ;-) Also, there is not much in this issue, but I sincerely hope, you will contribute and keep _our_ FidoNews in operation!! Happy reading. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 2 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Dear Editorbeing, This column is lashed together by Doc Logger (163/110) in deference to Art Lee who needs email fodder to complain about. As usual, Logger was winning major stuffed armadillo bets on the evolution of Fidonet. Roll da flic, Henk..... Dear Reverend Visage, I'd like to start off by thanking Zorch for being the Snoozlord. It takes a great deal of effort and commitment to put out this organ week after week, and it must have been doubly difficult for Zorch when quite often the submission cupboard contained nothing but my cheesy ravings. There is very little that Zorch wrote that I agreed with, but I appreciate the fact that he was willing to say it. If future Snoozlords take as seriously the concept of a free press, then we will be well served, as we were by Zorch during his tenure. We are still lingering in the summer doldrums waiting patiently for the fall netwar season to start so there isn't much to report. David Bowerman and I played musical chairs for a few days over the rights of admin moderators. This might have focused the issue of whether admin moderators should be able to shut down debate, but the issue of contention didn't provide enough illumination on that theme. I notice that Ward Dossche is asking for more than a brief word from Satti in the ZCC echo. I think I even detected a hint of sarcasm in the references to the long list of achievements that Satti has completed since he clawed his way into the IC position. If anyone does have a list of Satti's achievements and they don't mind sparing the matchbook cover they must be written on, they could shoot some netmail to Swamp Swine Magazine, care of myself. For my pithy quote to lead into the Chautauqua, I've chosen Eldridge Cleaver who wrote in "Soul on Ice" while raging about how the social revolution had been usurped, wrote: "..all of this in a nation where the so-called molders of public opinion, the writers, politicians, teachers, and cab drivers, are willful euphoric liars or zip-dam ostriches and owls, a clique of undercover ghosts... a lot of coffee drinking, cigarette smoking, sly suck-assing, status seeking, cheating, nervous, dry-balled, tranquilizer gulched, countdown minded, out of style, slithering snakes. FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 3 17 Aug 1998 No wonder that many 'innocent people', the manipulated and the stimulated, some of whom were game for a reasonable amount of mystery and even adventure, had their minds scrambled" I happen to like that quote because it certainly is a passionate statement. I also think that it crystallizes the despair of anyone who has watched a hopeful dream get trashed in the mixmaster of popular culture. We have become a great deal more efficient and mercantile since 1968 when Cleaver was writing and now it takes very little time at all for legitimate social protest to become just another advertising vehicle for something...selling beer, or designer clothing, or simply selling the ideas. (Surely the very concept could be marketed as "Cleaver's Angst" - a designer cologne or at the very least a television series sponsored by an obliging bathroom cleanser.) I watch with trepidation as various souls propose New & Improved visual sensations for Fidoland styled after the eye candy of Internet. My fear springs from the fact that it will quickly become a medium where words don't matter except as graphic text boxes, and communication will hit the gutter of factoid style discourse. I recently read through the entire collection of Fidonews issues and I must say that it presents an interesting picture of an evolving Fidonet. For the most part, it also paints a disheartening picture of a good idea gone wrong. On the plus side, I believe that the original spirit of Fidonet is salvageable and there remain a few minor impediments to restoring it. As conceived, Fidonet was to be a militantly public domain network for communication between consenting sysops. What few rules there were operated at the level of addressing and connectivity. The concept was designed to be self-regulating and self-adjusting - an anarchist's compact in an emerging technology. In the good old days there was a genuine concern that the world of modem to modem communication would be dominated by commercial interests and also regulated by governments in order to serve the interests of those corporations. Fidonet owes much to the software developers who made the system functional, and still owes a great debt of thanks to those who move the mail. In general when people talk reverently about rights or freedoms they speak as though they possessed those things. The "inalienable rights" referred to in a number of national constitutions are in fact very alien when it comes to practice. The gulf between the good idea, and the desire to short-circuit the concept by those in power tends to raise the ugly specter of expediency as an excuse for chiseling at the dream. Fidonet started out with a practical application of "inalienable rights" and was hijacked along the way. From the self-imposed hari-kari of the International Fidonet FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 4 17 Aug 1998 Association (IFNA) through to the brigands who proclaimed Peefour, the route has gone from a free association of sysops to a series of fiefdoms and private domains of those who want control over others. There are a myriad of arguments for having rules and rulers in Fidonet, some of them are even valid. The adherents of rigid structure speak of the horrors of mob rule leading to chaos. The presupposition of their arguments assumes that the mob would be armed with anything, unlike the current batch of *Cs who wield the blunt stick of Peefour. I think that the people who assert that we have to have rules don't see themselves as capable of accepting responsibility. They lack optimism. The lonely beacon of hope that has remained through Fidonet's history has been the Fidonews. Despite the frequent attempts to curtail the content, it has survived as a medium of free exchange. With any sort of luck, an editor can be found who can energize sysops to contribute articles and expand the common experience of us all. I must go Visage, I have sent the teenmonsters off to torment their obliging uncles and can't pass up this golden opportunity presented by an empty house... which is to fall asleep without the banshee whine of bad punk rock music reverberating the walls. Regards, Doc Logger, Furlang Island, South Pacific ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 5 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= ADVERTISE YOUR FREE SERVICE/EVENT ================================================================= Emanuel Edwards 1:348/963 emanuel@escape.ca Hello all Fidonet Sysops: Where else can you find a great echo that will increase the users on your BBS? Well here is the answer to your question. The WRESTLING_CHAT echo can be classified as one of the best echo on Fidonet today. If you don't have internet access and want to read all the latest news in the wrestling world this echo will provide you with all the valuable information. In the last 6 months the echo been getting well over 200 messages a week. Once you request the WRESTLING_CHAT on your BBS you will see a great increase in news users on your BBS. Make that important decision today and request this great and interesting echo on your BBS. If you need more information about the echo you can contact me by email at emanuel@escape.ca The Areatag for the echo is WRESTLING_CHAT Moderator for the echo is Emanuel Edwards Co_Moderator for the echo is Barry Laws JR Volume of Mail in one months 1000 to 1200 Emanuel Internet emanuel@escape.ca Fidonet 1:348/963 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 6 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= Future History 5 Oct 1998 29th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". 14 Sep 1998 Start of International BBS Week [thru 20 Sep 98]. 22 Sep 1998 First anniversary of the FidoNews domain of www.fidonews.org. 23 Nov 1998 35th Anniversary of Doctor Who. 1 Dec 1998 Fifteenth Anniversary of release of Fido version 1 by Tom Jennings. 16 Feb 1999 13th Anniversary of the introduction of EchoMail by Jeff Rush. 12 May 1999 12th Anniversary of Fido Operations in Zone 4; 10th Anniversary of the creation of FidoNet Zone 4. 24 Jul 1999 XIII Pan American Games [through 8 Aug 99]. 9 Jun 1999 Tenth Anniversary of the adoption of FidoNet Policy 4.07. 31 Dec 1999 Hogmanay, Scotland. The New Year that can't be missed. 1 Jan 2000 The 20th Century, C.E., is still taking place thru 31 Dec. 1 Jun 2000 EXPO 2000 World Exposition in Hannover (Germany) opens. 15 Sep 2000 Sydney (Australia) Summer Olympiad opens. 1 Jan 2001 This is the actual start of the new millennium, C.E. -- If YOU have something which you would like to see in this Future History, please send a note to the FidoNews Editor. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 7 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= FIDONET BY INTERNET ================================================================= This is a list of all FidoNet-related sites reported to the FidoNews Editor as of this issue; see the notice at the end. FidoNet: Homepage http://www.fidonet.org FidoNews http://www.fidonews.org [HTML] http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html [ASCII] WWW sources http://www.scms.rgu.ac.uk/students/cs_yr94/lk/fido.html FTSC page http://www.goldware.dk/ftsc Echomail [pending] WebRing http://ddi.digital.net/~cbaker84/fnetring.html [TFN] General http://owls.com/~jerrys/fidonet.html http://www.trak-one.co.uk/foti ============ Zone 1: http://www.z1.fidonet.org Region 10: http://www.psnw.com/~net205/region10.html Region 11: http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/ Region 18: http://techshop.pdn.net/fido/ Region 19: http://www.compconn.net ============ Zone 2: http://www.z2.fidonet.org ZEC2: Zone 2 Elist: http://www.fbone.ch/z2_elist/ Region 20: http://www.fidonet.pp.se (in Swedish) Region 23: http://www.fido.dk (in Danish) Region 24: http://www.swb.de/personal/flop/gatebau.html (German) Fido-IP: http://home.nrh.de/~lbehet/fido (English/German) Region 25: http://www.bsnet.co.uk/net2502/net/ Region 26: http://www.nemesis.ie REC 26: http://www.nrgsys.com/orb Region 27: http://telematique.org/ft/r27.htm Region 29: http://www.rtfm.be/fidonet/ (French) Region 30: http://www.fidonet.ch (Swiss?) FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 8 17 Aug 1998 Region 33: http://www.fidoitalia.net (Italian) Region 34: http://www.pobox.com/cnb/r34.htm (Spanish) REC34: http://pobox.com/~chr Region 36: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7207/ Region 38: http://public.st.carnet.hr/~blagi/bbs/adriam.html Region 41: http://www.fidonet.gr (Greek/English) Region 48: http://www.fidonet.org.pl ============ Zone 3: http://www.z3.fidonet.org ============ Zone 4: http://www.altern.org/zone4 Region 90: http://visitweb.com/fidonet Net 903: http://www.playagrande.com/refugio Net 904: http://members.tripod.com/~net904 (Spanish) ============ Zone 5: http://w3.eastcape.co.za/fidonet/index.htm ============ Zone 6: http://www.z6.fidonet.org Region 65: http://www.cfido.com/fidonet/cfidochina.html (Chinese) ============ Pages listed above are as submitted to the FidoNews Editor, and generally reflect Zone and Regional Web Page sites. If no Regional site is submitted, the first Network page from that Region is used in its place. Generally, Regional pages should list access points to all Networks within the Region. TCP/IP accessible node access information should be submitted to the FidoNews Editor for inclusion in their Region or Zone. -----------oOo------------- Fidonet Via Internet Hubs Node# | Operator | Facilities (*) | Speed | Basic Rate -----------+-------------------+----------------+-------+----------- 1:12/12 | Ken Wilson | FTP | T1 | $24mo. 1:13/25 | Jim Balcom | FTP | 56k | $20mo. 1:124/7008 | Ben Hamilton |FTP,VMoT,F2I,UUE| 64k | $10/$20mo. 1:140/12 | Bob Seaborn | FTP | T1 | $5/$20 FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 9 17 Aug 1998 1:270/101 | George Peace | FTP | T1 | $30mo. 1:271/140 | Tom Barstow | F2I | ??? | $2mo. 1:275/1 | Joshua Ecklund | UUE,F2I | 28.8 | $10/yr. 1:280/169 | Brian Greenstreet | FTP | 33.6 | $2mo. 1:2401/305 | Peter Rocca | FTP,UUE | T1 | unkn 1:2424/10 | Alec Grynspan | FTP,VMoT | T1 | $1mo. 1:2424/3121| Earl Clark | UUE | 33.6 | n/c 1:2604/104 | Jim Mclaughlin | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 33.6 | $1mo. 1:2624/306 | D. Calafrancesco | VFOS | 33.6 | $15yr. 1:345/0 | Todd Cochrane | FTP | T1 | n/c 1:346/250 | Aran Spence | FTP,UUE | T1 | $10mo. 1:342/1022 | Steve Steffler | UUE,F2I | 33.6 | n/c 1:3651/9 | Jerry Gause | FTP,VMoT | 33.6 | $3/$6 1:396/1 | John Souvestre | FTP,VMoT | T1 | $15mo. 2:2411/413 | Dennis Dittrich | UUE | 64k | n/c 2:33/505 | Mario Mure | VMoT,UUE | 64k | n/c 2:335/610 | Gino Lucrezi | UUE | 33.6 | n/c 2:469/84 | Max Masyutin | VMoT | 256k | n/c 2:2474/275 | Christian Emig | UUE | 64k | unkn 2:2490/5170| Lenny Murphy | F2I | ??? | n/c 5:7104/2 | Henk Wolsink | FTP | 28.8 | n/c -- + VMoT = Virtual Mailer over Telnet (various) + F2I = Fido2Int (W95) + UUE = uuencode<->email packet transfers compiled by C. Ingersoll, 1:2623/71, (609)814-1978, fbn@dandy.net Posted on the 1st of every month in FN_SYSOP, R13SYSOP and Fidonews. - ___ ! Origin: * Fly By Night * (609)814-1978 *(1:2623/71) ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 10 17 Aug 1998 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= ------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ------- Editor: Henk Wolsink Editors Emeritii: Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, Christopher Baker, Zorch Frezberg "FidoNews Editor" FidoNet 5:5/23 BBS +27-41-515-913, 2400/9600/V.34/V.90 more addresses: Henk Wolsink -- 5:7104/2, hwolsink@catpe.alt.za (Postal Service mailing address) FidoNews Editor P.O. Box 12325 Port Elizabeth, 6006 South Africa ------------------------------------------------------ FidoNews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. OPINIONS EXPRESSED in these articles ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS and not necessarily those of FidoNews and/or the Editor. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is Copyright 1998 Henk Wolsink. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the Editor. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews Editor via manual download or file-request, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet. PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above postal address. File-request FIDONEWS for the current Issue. File-request FNEWS for the current month in one archive. Or file-request specific back Issue filenames in distribution format [FNEWSFnn.ZIP] for a particular Issue. Monthly Volumes are available as FNWSmmmy.ZIP where mmm = three letter month [JAN - DEC] and y = last digit of the current year [8], i.e., FNWSJAN8.ZIP for all the Issues from Jan 98. FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 11 17 Aug 1998 Annual volumes are available as FNEWSn.ZIP where n = the Volume number 1 - 15 for 1984 - 1998, respectively. Annual Volume archives range in size from 48K to 1.4M. INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via: http://www.fidonews.org http://www.fidonet.org/fidonews.htm ftp://ftp.fidonet.org/pub/fidonet/fidonews/ ftp://ftp.aminet.org/pub/aminet/comm/fido/ ftp://ftp.irvbbs.com/fidonews/ ftp://ftp.nwstar.com/Fidonet/Fidonews And in non-English formats via: http://www.hvc.ee/pats/fidonews (Estonian) http://www.fidonet.pp.se/sfnews (Swedish) *=*=* You may obtain an email subscription to FidoNews by sending email to: jbarchuk@worldnet.att.net with a Subject line of: subscribe fnews-edist and no message in the message body. To remove your name from the email distribution use a Subject line of: unsubscribe fnews-edist with no message to the same address above. * You may retrieve current and previous Issues of FidoNews via FTPMail by sending email to: ftpmail@fidonews.org with a Subject line of: help and FTPMail will immediately send a reply containing details and instructions. When you actually make a file request, FTPMail will respond in three stages. You find a link for this process on www.fidonews.org. *=*=* You can read the current FidoNews Issue in HTML format at: http://www.fidonews.org STAR SOURCE for ALL Past Issues via FTP and file-request - Available for FReq from 1:396/1 or by anonymous FTP from: ftp://ftp.sstar.com/fidonet/fnews/ FIDONEWS 15-33 Page 12 17 Aug 1998 Each yearly archive also contains a listing of the Table-of-Contents for that year's issues. The total set is currently about 13 Megs. =*=*=*= The current week's FidoNews and the FidoNews public-key are now also available almost immediately after publication on the FidoNews Editor homepage on the World Wide Web at: http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html There are also links there to jim barchuk's HTML FidoNews source and to John Souvestre's FTP site for the archives. There is also an email link for sending in an article as message text. Drop on over. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews Editor, or file-requestable from 5:5/23 [5:7104/2] as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". ALL Zone Coordinators also have copies of ARTSPEC.DOC. Please read it. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, P.O. Box 410923, San Francisco, CA 94141, and are used with permission. "Disagreement is actually necessary, or we'd all have to get in fights or something to amuse ourselves and create the requisite chaos." -Tom Jennings -----------------------------------------------------------------