Subj : WHY I ASK FOR REAL INFO ON MY BBS! To : alt.bbs.allsysop From : "Chris Martin" Date : Fri Jan 02 2004 06:01 pm FamilyNet Newsgate Once upon a time, out on MARS. While reading the mail, wispering this: >I have just one beef with your rule. I have had many experiences with >sysops >who have misused the user records. One cosysop of a BBS I was on long >ago, used the BBS user records as his personal phonebook when the BBS >went down. I never got any peace because he'd call me all the time. RR> I've had similar problems, especially as a door author. It's rather RR> irritating RR> to be getting 4am phone calls on my cell phone from a random sysop with a RR> DoorMUD question, who got my number since I left it when making an account on RR> his board 6 months prior... That has to be Sysop specific. Not ALL do this... RR> Don't get me wrong, I'm all about providing sysop support, but via *e-mail* RR> please... I do not provide 24/7 voice support and never will, it just isn't RR> practical. I agree... Email is sufficient. RR> Needless to say, I never leave my real phone number at all anymore. RR> Sometimes, RR> can't even use my real name... I get accused of cheating if I ever enter my RR> own RR> doors (even though I'm just doing it to obtain feedback/suggestions from ot her RR> on-line players in the game). Also sometimes get threats from other RR> players/sysops if I play *other* doors (I've actually gotten mails like "I RR> can't believe you killed me in TradeWars, I'm going to boycott/delete your RR> doors!"... sigh) Sounds like they are either just being "pissy" or they haven't figured out how to play the games effectively.. :*) My board requires the "Real Name" due to echo restrictions (Fido, and a couple of others), and a location. The CBV uses the entered user phone number, but it is WildCat! specific and accesses the ecrypted database for it. No one else can see it, or access it. Even I can't see some of the data, without specific utilities to do so, and I haven't needed it in the 10+years the board has been running. RR> Regards, RR> Evan Back at ya.. Chris Martin, The MARS Station BBS * WCE 2.1G1/2419 * ... Bill Gates did write a slowdown virus: WINDOWS FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail http://www.fmlynet.org .