Subj : only check/reply to messages every 2 months or so?
To   : August Abolins
From : Charles Pierson
Date : Fri Jan 01 2021 18:19:42

On 01 Jan 2021, August Abolins said the following...
 AA> Often, when I revisit the older-than-2month "tagged for replies"  
 AA> messages, I can't remember Wtf I had in mind as a reply.  :/   
 AA> Sometimes it comes back to me in a few seconds, so then I may  
 AA> decide to keep them on the back-burner a little while longer.
 AA> 
 AA> Sometimes I later realize that someone else may have delt with  
 AA> the topic.
 AA> 
 AA> This is part of the reason I think sysops should never let an  
 AA> echo to completely purge of all (old) messages.  Instead, try to  
 AA> keep at least a modicum selection of say "the last 200" or so.
 AA> 

I believe my point softwares that I used kept 300 messages per echo.

My BBS here holds 500 per echo. If I am able to get a new phone this year,
and let this one be strictly BBS related, I'll probably expand on that. I'm
currently carrying around 200 message areas I believe, and unfortunately,
this phone doesn't let applications run off of the SD card, so it limits my
available space.

 AA>  CS> BTW, saw some silly dust ups about the telegram bit.  Best
 AA>  CS> to tell them it's from our standpoint much like a fancy OLR
 AA>  CS> that works well in a world of tablets and such technology..
 AA> 
 AA> Thank you for that. I'd like to forward your full comment to the  
 AA> FIDONET.TELEGRAM echo.  It may serve to educate new sysops/users.

I think a big part of the dust up was a lack of communication. wh8ch is
somewhat humourous considering this is a communucation medium.

 AA>  CS> Technically when Dale Shipp was feeding me traffic on the
 AA>  CS> USS McHenry then USS Essex, we dove off to an email to email
 AA>  CS> delivery with OLR on each end.  Similar in concept.
 AA> 
 AA> OMG.. "our" data was being transmitted to various USS ships  
 AA> without our prior knowledge!  What about privacy, what about our  
 AA> rights! What unsavoury servers are utilized on those ships?  Or..  
 AA> even what over-the-air non-FTN techonolgy was used for  
 AA> transmissions?  The horror.
 AA> 
 AA> I know one sysop who implemented a mechanism to forward netmail  
 AA> to his user's cell phones in the early 2000's.  Surely, a lot of  
 AA> "unkown" servers and systems would be involved in-between.  Noone  
 AA> seemed to be bothered by that.
 AA> 

In the early to mid 90's, at least one echo I was active in used a
gateway program and Juno email to connect to email lists. There wsn't any
issue that I was aware of.

But there has always been complaints about changes to how and where Fidonet
traffic is. 

"Privacy" concerns just seem to loom larger these days than in the past.

 AA> Too late. Less than just 2 weeks of implementation, a couple of  
 AA> modertors changed their minds (they approved the transmissions  
 AA> previously) about this alternate OLR after only a couple other  
 AA> people raised questions.
 AA> 
 AA> The experiment lost WIFI, X-FILES, NZ_FIDONET, WHAT'S_HOT! &  
 AA> RETAIL_HORROR ..all good candidates for the independent chat  
 AA> style of messaging.
 AA> 
 AA> Maybe you can help dispell any fears?

Again, I still say it was a communication problem. I remember Carol
mentioning at least that the link was coming. That's more than those echos
you mention above did.

Like I was trying to say before during that hooplah, going forward, even
after getting moderators permission, take a little time explaining how it
works in the echo before going live.

Yes, there are going to be some users and even sysops opposed to the idea,
but they are free to no longer participate in the echo if it bothers them
that much.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
 * Origin: theoasisbbs.ddns.net:1357 (1:106/127)

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