Subj : Re: Still holding the fort. To : JOHN FITZGERALD From : alexander koryagin Date : Fri Aug 16 2013 13:26:58 Hi, JOHN FITZGERALD! I read your message from 15.08.2013 13:01 JF>>> Wow, you guys are still here. Last time I logged on here I think JF>>> Peter Brady was still with us. What about ole John Wilson? Is he JF>>> still around? I still have my old rig tucked away in a box. A JF>>> 286, 512k ram, 2400 baud modem, 5 1/4 inch disks, and monochrome JF>>> screen (Gotta love those green letters) and 40mb, full height, JF>>> hard disk, which I sometimes use as a boat anchor. :-) JF>>> If you guys wanna lock horns on some hot topics where the debate JF>>> is viewed by 100s, possibly 1000s, go to Wikipedia and check out JF>>> the talk pages on some of the pages like '2003 invasion of Iraq', JF>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2003_invasion_of_Iraq) JF> JF>>> 'Separation of church and state': JF>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Separation_of_church_and_stat JF>>> e) In any case it's nice to know not everything is washed away by JF>>> the tides of change. ak>> The quotation system of forums are so poor and miserable; it makes ak>> impossible to have a long deep discussions as people have had in ak>> Fidonet. Going to Web forums is degradation for a discussion. ak>> Well, probably such a thing is possible in Usenet if you have a ak>> good NNTP client. ak>> Just look at my answer "Re: Clandestine activity is a holy cow of ak>> democracy" from August 6. The text in the message itself is piece ak>> of art! ;-) JF> Nonsense. The forum works fine for 99% of the people who JF> participate. Every message is signed by the user and each new entry JF> is indented from the one above it, so only the idiots who need road JF> signs every ten feet are left confused. Piece of art? Are we having JF> a discussion or admiring text? A discussion text must look nice, too. Especially, a good quoting is important when a discussion is written by many persons. In this case it is important to see clearly the authorship of every paragraph, every line, because it is very important to shorten opponents phases as much as possible, so that all the discussion was before your eyes. That is why, despite what you had said, you cannot find in web forums an example of a long, deep, clever discussion -- only the discussions that sound like dog's barking or sparrow's twitting. In other words, the conferences like this one is an ideal place for discussions. But unfortunately people on Earth have changed. Signing in to the Fidonet, using cool client programs is too difficult for modern (even young) people. Just look at the quotation style of your message to me! -----Beginning of the citation----- -> AK>> ;=) Well, well, who doubts around the world that American history -> AK>> books tell that the Vietnam war was victorious for the US? -> AK>> Propaganda doesn't allow the opposite, especially if the opposite -> AK>> is humiliating. -> -> JF> Actually, American history books do not describe Vietnam as a -> JF> victory for America. And we know the US lost the war. Not all know -> JF> it, but most of us do. -> -> -> JF> We could have won that war if we 'wanted to'. Do you really think -> JF> we "lost" the war because the Viet Cong had a more formidable -> JF> military the the U. S.? We could have wiped them out any time we -> JF> pleased. -> -> Good argument, of a computer gamer. ;-/ Poor reply, even for a computer gamer. The US could have turned up the heat any number of ways. The war was purposely dragged out for several reasons, mostly concerning the (then) USSR, who was supplying the North. -----The end of the citation----- If somebody wants to participate in our discussion he/she would have a pain in his/her ass because making quotes from such messages is very difficult (well, for those people who don't use a cool Quoter program made by me :)) So, modern people prefer to go in places where interface so easy that every dog is capable to start barking there. Generally, it is another explanation for the poor intellectual content of web forums. No new young generation has come to Fidonet. Current Fidonet/Usenet users are old, cool guys, who have already discussed every possible interesting subject many times. That is why they are mostly silent now. You can see in Fidonet only messages written by the people who are always young. ;=) Bye, JOHN! Alexander Koryagin fido7.debate 2013 --- FIDOGATE 5.1.7ds * Origin: Pushkin's BBS (2:5020/2140.2) .