Subj : Most recent elisting of this area To : Wilfred van Velzen From : August Abolins Date : Mon Jan 25 2021 21:06:00 Hello Wilfred! ** On Monday 25.01.21 - 19:02, Wilfred van Velzen wrote to August Abolins: >>> I don't know. Maybe some should become read-only, to keep >>> its history AA>> Yes.. that would be hard to get a fidonet-wide consensus AA>> to do that. WvV> It's impossible. Best would be if it was a technical WvV> feature. But since it isn't. And it won't happen that WvV> every used piece of software in fidonet will be updated to WvV> support it. I guess that is what netmail is for! But, it's not good for sysops who are generally hands-off with these things and prefer automation to rule. The enthusiasm to improve the echomail system simply dwindled among the remaining sysops when "internet" seduced people away from doing things on BBSes. :( AA>> However, having some echos revitalized by showing up could AA>> be a good thing. WvV> I think there's plenty of areas already. More isn't WvV> necessarily better. True. It's a matter of promoting what is already configured and ready to rock'n'roll. WvV> Everybody has limited time to spend in fido. So WvV> concentrating this in a few areas is better then spreading WvV> it out over more and more... If you do that enough WvV> everyone has his own favourite area, and everybody is WvV> talking to himself. ;) What this hobby needs are sysops who are either young people who don't have adulting responsibilities or seniors who still have lucid minds. Wrt to spreading out the conversations over echos, that would be necessary as people delve into specific topics. But generic echos (coffee_klatsch, chat, asian_link) are perfect entry points for conversation. Then, as people get familiar with their BBS or Boss, they can learn about echos that could cater to more specific topics. The problem with this echomail hobby is lack of awareness and promotion. AA>> What's lacking is attracting a userbase to maintain the AA>> chat momentum. Where *is* everybody? WvV> I think we've passed that station, fidonet is slowely WvV> dying... :-( Promotion! Maybe we need to offer hats with MEGA (make echomail great again) LOL AA>> ..a cousin of mine.. She's still sticking with FB; based AA>> on all the selfie's and automatic live posting of the most AA>> recent restaurant or shopping destination, she's not much AA>> of a conversationalist anyway. WvV> ;) She's a bad example. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned her. She doesn't even use email very much. Her "email" is FB Messenger (the chat mechanism). Since she was used to that, I thought Telegram wouldn't be too hard for her. She primarily wanted my cellphone number, but I did not want to disclose it. Telegram seemed to the next best option - for her. I would not expect her to be interested in the echos. But I had a few other people (ex echomail users) poised to join us in the generic chat echos. They were under the assumption that echomail died in 2000 when dial-up died. Again.. this is all due to unawareness of the current state of things and the modern internet-way to rejoin echomail. -- ../|ug --- OpenXP 5.0.48 * Origin: My Westcoast Point (1:153/757.21) .