Subj : Cha..Cha....Changes
To   : MICHAEL GRANT
From : FOXY FERGUSON
Date : Sun Aug 11 2002 02:12 pm

MG> If you had to update your routings regularly in order to keep
MG> them in the chart, that'd help to keep the chart accurate.

I am of the opinion that it would only mean that people would
ignore the need to update it at all, which all too many already
do. Ignore it, that is, until mail got lost. Whereupon they'd
bitch like mad that it is the duty of all the volunteers (ECs,
mail movers) to make sure their mail got where they wanted it
to go, even when they don't tell the volunteers anything.

Why does this list exist, Michael? Who is it supposed to serve?
What do those who depend upon list absolutely need to find in it?
What is the information they need that can only be found in this
list and nowhere else? IS there critical info that can't be found
elsewhere? Why is it overly complicated, especially in a shrinking
Fidonet?

I can produce a route list in the overly complicated fashion in
which it was initially designed, leaving asside the question of
why it even came into being in the first place and at whose
insistance...  OR I can dispense with certain weekly headaches
caused by that rather unnecessary over-complication and adhere to
the KISS principle.

I've done the former ever since August of 2000, all the while
listening to major mail movers who say that isn't what =they=
need. In my opinion, it is those major mail movers who are my
'customers', if you will, and it is those nodes whom I need to
satisfy.

The software created by the former listkeeper to produce the list
required a certain commercial software application that I did not
own and wasn't about to go out and buy just for this one task. I
designed my own system, wrote a few simple batch files, augmented
by my own custom software, in order to ensure the expected result.
I've added a few bells and whistles just to satisfy a very vocal
minority, but they weren't, IMHO, really needed.

I have automated the system I use to the maximum possible, given
what I have to work with and what I am expected to produce. And
every week I still have a certain amount of maunual manipulation
that CANNOT be avoided, partly because of Bill Gates' broken-down
crappy software that simply cannot POSSIBLY produce a correct
sort, given the nature of the data!

I do not see how additional automation (such as required regular
updates) will solve anything at all. I greatly fear it would only
make things worse. Too many rules and too much red tape is often,
I believe, as counter-productive as too little.

All of the above, sir, is essentially what's behind recent changes.

If it causes me to lose my allegedly lofty and supposidly powerful
position of ZEC, sobeit!

--- Platinum Xpress/Wildcat! v1.4c
 * Origin: Pogo's Place (1:361/1)

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