Subj : FidoNews 33:35 [03/08]: Guest Editorial To : All From : FidoNews Robot Date : Mon Aug 29 2016 00:26:30 ================================================================= GUEST EDITORIAL ================================================================= Stirring the Pot First off, this article has been very difficult for me to write as I am recovering from a brain injury. I'm sorry if I'm not the most eloquent writer, or the best at choosing words. Please read it knowing that I care deeply about FidoNet. I will not hurl stones or flame people by name. If you feel guilty keep reading on, it's really not all about you. But I'm sure there will be some that will think it is. I have read the well written editorial that Frank Vest wrote in the previous edition of fidonews. Yes there once were BBS systems out there that had many users. My BBS, in it's heyday, had over 2000 users that called in from all over the world. My phone lines were supported by user donations. I would always receive kind notes in the mail with a dollar or two cash in them. There was always a spirit of appreciation for what I did. Amazingly there were few months that the donations did not pay for the multiple POTS lines. I felt that the users respected me and were grateful for the service that I provided. Upon my return to Fidonet in 2016 I find that there are few echos left where "topical" discussion is maintained. There are a hand full of echos that still maintain topics. The fidonet cooking, recipes, memories (nostalgia), asian chat and automotive are a few that come immediately to mind. In last weeks article it seemed to blame the sysops for the decline of fidonet... yes there is plenty of fighting and arguing to go around, but unfortunately, it's not always the sysops that are doing it. I am not naming names because that is not an avenue I want to go down. Those who are guilty will surely be the first ones to stir the pot and raise a stink for where I am about to go. There are a core group of users (and a few sysops) that want to stir the pot (an old Southern saying) and get an argument going. There is no respect or regard to the main topic of an echo. Their goal is to disrupt and cause discord among the networks. Some think that the FN_SYSOP echo should be open to everyone... but the echo is a sysops only admin echo. It is a place where we can discuss the forest... and the forests infrastructure. It is a place where we can gather and work things out. It is a place where we can plan and discuss new things to delight the users. We deserve an echo where we can discuss, chat, and decompress amongst ourselves. Unfortunately, there are a few that sit on the sidelines and take every opportunity that they can to hurl stones and stifle progress. Many echos have shut down and become abandoned because of abusive users who do not respect topics. It seems that all that's left that has any movement in Fidonet is a few echos. The users who are hurling stones know that this behavior would not be tolerated in the Asian Chat echo, or the cooking echo as there are enough people active in there that would not tolerate this behavior. Yes folks... this handful of users takes great delight in their bad behavior. Even when there are some that are willing to help them at every turn. You want to know what is killing fidonet and making the good sysops shut down... it is because some have crossed over from being USERS to becoming ABUSERS. Their behavior is ABUSE plain and simple, and much is unwarranted. Again there's another cancer that's running rampant in fidonet it is called APATHY. Apathy NOUN pronounced App-ah-thee 1. lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern: "widespread apathy among students" synonyms: indifference · lack of interest lack of enthusiasm How can an sysop be interested in maintaining and building a good BBS and creating echos with topics that would interest people when there are a handful of malcontents, Debbie downers, and troublemakers. A deep cloud of Apathy falls over the BBS and the Sysop says why am I doing this? Why should I continue to do this? Ultimately the lack of appreciation causes the sysop to shut things down. Many of the sysops of the 1980's and 1990's are now up there in years and they just don't feel the joy that is returned for their efforts. And apathy is CONTAGIOUS... yes it spreads. Indifferent and apathetic sysops have contributed as much to the decline of fidonet as the negative, disruptive posters. Apathy will spread fast in any organization when there's no return for our efforts. You can just feel it take hold... the unmotivated, don’t-care folks just suck the energy and life right out. You can sense mediocrity settling in like a dense fog or wet blanket. You reach a point where you don't care about maintaining your system anymore and it just becomes a place where negativity will abound. The BBS just isn't fun anymore... and isn't time to make it FUN again like it once was back in the day. The strange thing is those who are raising the most hell are also some of the most intelligent and good writers on the net. They -are- creative people... even though they are destructive in their creativity they are generating traffic and sometimes something that is very interesting comes by. There was some very useful information on Statins, and other health matters shared in between the arguments. Even when the "trouble- makers" disappear for a time those who disagree with them ask if they are alright. After all, when tornados kokomo, fires, earthquakes, floods in North Carolina and Louisiana happen we ask where the people are. FidoNet still is a very caring place at times and when a user or sysop disappears, people ask what happened to them. And then there's another cancer that has settled in to FidoNet. Some have become very close minded, they don't want to think about new innovations or ways to do things. There are great programmers out there, but no one is motivated to make something new. As the new computers become faster, bigger, and better... the software we have has become incompatible with a lot of new equipment. But there's no innovation because collectively we have become rigid and inflexible with trying new things... looking at better ways to do things... if it wasn't for someone getting inspired in Russia, we would not have the Bink-P protocol... perhaps fidonet would have met it's demise if the Bink-P protocol was not developed. There is still development out there in the open source scene and much of it is coming from outside of Zone 1. Then we have the developers of Mystic and Syncrhonet who have done so much to bring life back into the BBS scene. I sometimes find myself guilty of not appreciating the gift that they have given us. I know the developer of Mystic has taken a much needed break away from it's development and I pray he comes back with a renewed and creative spark. Unfortunately nothing will extinguish the creative spark of an individual than being surrounded by a crowd of those who criticise, those who do not appreciate your efforts, or worse the apathetic few who just don't give a shit If we truly want to see FidoNet grow again we have to remember what brought joy to us in the past. We have to have respect for those who volunteer to bring the service to one another. We have to let go of all the baggage from the great Z1-Z2/Z3 feud and realize that we all need to cooperate to bring it all back. We also have to think of what brought people to fidonet... right now all that's moving is cooking, and policies with a mixture of chat that does not apply to the echo's topical name. We need to return to a time when FIDONEWS contained discussion of the articles that were written in FIDONEWS and chat went on in the CHAT echo. (I'ts still around but nobody uses it.) The echo topics need to be respected. The COOKING echo mostly has discussions about cooking in it... the ASIAN LINK echo is a darn good chat echo, unfortunately there are no Asians left in there to link to. Perhaps it should become the official chat echo. POLITICS should stay in the politico echos and the [ADM] Sysops echos need to remain a place where we can discuss new ideas and approaches to build the network all of the backchannel negativity needs to be contained and it has come to the point where we need to have a return of respect and reciprocity between the users and the sysops once again. The madness needs to stop... old wounds need to heal... we have to realize that we are ONE fidonet... not a handfull of Zones who feel the need to compete for control. Allen Prunty 1:2320/100 NC Net 2320/100 But a member of the -GLOBAL- Fidonet ----------------------------------------------------------------- --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0 * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0) .