Subj : Echo Savior Rides Again
To   : ANDREA SANTOS
From : Roy Witt
Date : Fri May 11 2001 01:48 pm

Hello ANDREA.

10 May 01 16:22, you wrote to me:

 AS>>> Some active Moderators didn't manage to get passed the intent, that
 AS>>> the messages were not intended for them, but served as a wakeup
 AS>>> call for situations like what you described.

 RW>> Netmail or email would have served that purpose just as well (has to
 RW>> be so,

 AS> But netmail or email is useless for a missing Moderator or one who is
 AS> asleep at the wheel.

Then the echo is up for grabs anyway.

 AS>   By posting the notice in the echo, participants can get together
 AS> and plan a course of action so the echo doesn't get dropped from
 AS> distribution or saved by someone who doesn't participate in the echo.

By not allowing a third party update for 30 days after expiration, the
echo users can then be notified in the echo.  There's no need to disrupt
an echo just because the moderator has flown the coupŠ.

 RW>> as the Z1B SLA dictates that each moderator be available via netmail
 RW>> - doubt if the other one has any policy like this).

 AS> John's messages were going out prior to an SLA existing.

The SLA existed in similar form as the NAB's guidelines, before Souvestre
left it.

 RW>> Doing so in the echo only makes the situation worse, as now the
 RW>> users feel the moderator has abandoned the echo and soon they'll be
 RW>> with no place to use.

 AS> If the Moderator HAS abandoned the echo, users need to get active in
 AS> order to ensure the echo isn't dropped.

Even under SLA rules, the echo will be in distribution for six months
after it's been dropped from the elist.  There's no hurry.

 AS> If the Moderator is in the echo regularly, how would users construe
 AS> such a notice as anything other than a note to update if the
 AS> Moderator forgot or if the last update didn't take, or simply a
 AS> mistake?

You're forgetting that the EK serves notice to moderators that their
elisting is about to expire, via netmail or email, whichever is the case
of the last update. The first being sent 30 days before the echolisting
will expire.

However, echo users may construe certain knowledge that the echo moderator
doesn't have the elist password by his inaction to make the update.  Take
AUTORACE for instance.  If the moderator there had the password, he would
have updated the echo when the first expiration notice was posted in the
echo. I don't remember if Adrian sent out expiration notices in those
days, but if he did, then the moderator certainly should have avoided the
warnings being posted in the echo.

Some users, the really smart ones, would figure out after weeks go by that
the moderator didn't have the password to update the listing.  Hence, an
echo hijacking takes place.

As it turned out, the mod didn't have the password and the person who did,
left Fidonet quietly and without notice, and didn't update the echo for
him.

 AS> I don't see this as a big deal.

I do.

 RW>> I personally took it as an invitation to 'hijack' the
 RW>> AUTORACE echo and was successful in spite of the moderator and his
 RW>> third party updater.  It served the same purpose when the FLAME echo
 RW>> was about to expire.

 AS> Have never had such designs so can't comment.

Then you don't have any grounds to say one way or the other.  In one case,
I hijacked an echo, in the other, I was the echo's savior.  I even emailed
Dave Randall to see if he'd like the echolisting password.  I got no
reply.

 RW>> Elist keeper requires 30 day wait before third parties may update.
 RW>> Resolves the problem we've seen recently where the savior updates
 RW>> the echo and then the real moderator comes along and has to argue to
 RW>> get his echo back.

 AS> True.

 RW>> I know you're no fan of Bob Kohl, but it happened to
 RW>> him twice when it shouldn't even have been a question.  How many
 RW>> more have suffered the same fate?

 AS> Probably more than Kohl. ;-)

 RW>>>> Whether it's viable or dead, there has to be a better way to
 RW>>>> resolve the issue.

 AS>>> Agreed.  Can always take the step of not allowing 3rd party
 AS>>> updates.

 RW>> Not exactly right. Third party updates are done with the permission
 RW>> of the elisted moderator. Not allowing a 3rd party update after
 RW>> an expiration would solve the problem.

 AS> What I meant.

 RW>> But, you'll note by his reply
 RW>> here, that again the EK refuses to even consider it.

 AS> But then there is the complaint about "saviors".  Can't blame the
 AS> savior if nothing is being done so that it won't happen.

You got that right.


.... I simply Captured the Welcome screen and posted on this echo -jw-
--- Twit(t) Filter v2.1 (C) 2000
 * Origin: 1998 FLAME echo - Asshole Of the Year! (1:10/22)

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