Subj : echos - a morbid curiosity
To   : Wilfred van Velzen
From : August Abolins
Date : Wed Dec 16 2020 04:16:02

On 12/15/2020 10:09 AM, between "Wilfred van Velzen - August Abolins":

>  AA> But it is not getting attention. It's not in Janice's echolist table in the
>  AA> Fidogazette.
>
> I never look at it. ;)

You don't have to look at the whole mag.  Just take a look at the sorted echo table. I think it is one of the best summaries of active fidonet echos that there is that a USER can understand. The other STATS tables are just too overly statistical and become pedantic.


> If I want to look for (active) areas, I look in the 'STATS' echomail
> area. All those dead areas, are best left that way! ;)

OK.  Took a look.  Pharcyde, diskshop, CRBBS and a couple others do a nice regular report. But the Top-10 should should extended to the top 20 or so.

The USER needs to know what the possibilities are. If there is an echo excluded from the top 10, then that unreported echo will remain dead.


>  AA> This is probably one of the reasons why new people are not finding
>  AA> Fidonet echos.
>
> The best way, still, to find areas for points and nodes, is to send a
> %LIST to their links. So you get the existing ones on their systems.
> (Not necessarily the active ones) BBS users of course can only access
> what is available on the system they are logged in to at the
> moment...


%LIST is only good from a point user or another sysop that have established passwords to talk to areafix.  I'm talking about something that a user coming onboard to fidonet or anothernet could use.


>  AA> It would be nice if there was a more consolidated (and real-time) way
>  AA> to announce active/live echos.
>
> The 'STATS' area? But not many systems announce activity their. But
> still since a few major mail movers do, you can get a good
> impression.

I don't see the potential USER pouring through the different tables to figure out what echotag resembles what they are looking for.

I think that sysops who have become so focused on their automation and interbbs connectivity have simply forgotten what it is like for a USER to find anything.

Some time ago, I posted in FUTURE4FIDO about having a table that lists the top BBSs that carry specific echos:

            System 1    System 2  System 3   System 4
TAGNAME1    BBS A       BBS B     BBS D      BBS E
TAGNAME2    BBS A       BBS D     BBS E      BBS F
TAGNAME3    BBS G       BBS A     BBS B      BBS F

THAT, would be useful for a user trying find an active echo that they could participate in and find the BBS to patronize.

But I digress.. this thread is starting to feel like an ASTRO-echo experience, ;), and best revisited in FUTURE4FIDO.

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 * Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

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