Subj : Tiers
To   : Todd Cochrane
From : Andrea Santos
Date : Sat Jul 14 2001 03:56 am

-> Imagine Joe User logins to a system with a full load and a sysop blindly
-> listing all of these echo's Joe user checks 4-5 echos only to find no
-> messages.. His opinion is formed this is a frickin joke logs off and
-> becomes one of the mindless WWW users... Z1B understands this and sets a
-> posting requirement and then culls a lot of the dead weight.. Guess what
-> Systems that feed or use the backbone.z1b listing automatically get some
-> protection in the fact we are watching the traffic levels... Is it a end
-> for all no... 

And we've had this discussion umpteen times, I'm in full agreement, yet
as things stand, there will be no agreement on this between the Z1B and
the NAB. Politics and personalities aside, as well as "titles," meshes
and voting rights, the only REAL difference between the two distribution 
systems (real,  meaning something noticeable to downlinks) is
availability of dead echos.  

And since certain folks at the top level no longer run a BBS, in some
cases for years, they are, IMO, completely out of touch with anything
other than moving mail, paying no attention to the fact that much of
what is being distributed are echos devoid of traffic.  As you note, if
a user pops into 5 echos, all of which have no traffic, he/she won't
bother returning.  And it's argued that sysops have a responsibility to
cull dead echos on their own.  And I'll argue that the sysops who do
have user traffic need to focus their time on other aspects of their
online systems to keep users' interest in general, and that the culling
ought to be done at the level above, especially when the focus is
strictly on mail moving and not gaining and retaining users.

Discounting the WWB, there is absolutely no need for two distribution
systems in Fidonet but unless the reasonable members of both
distribution systems can convince the others that dead echo distribution
is a detriment to Fidonet viability, they will both continue on.  I do
believe if a consensus could be reached on that one detail, there would
be hope of a merger otherwise.


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