Subj : Re: Getting new users
To   : Vk3jed
From : boraxman
Date : Sun Oct 16 2022 00:08:42

 Vk>  bo> Completely agree.  There are already mobile and web versions of chat
 Vk>  bo> and messaging and forum and email services, so why reimplement it?
 Vk>  bo> Trying to "modernise" the BBS would just be an exercise in reinventin
 Vk>  bo> Matrix, Web Forums, email, XMPP or Signal from scratch.
 Vk> 
 Vk> I partly agree.  Sure, there's many messaging apps, too many one might
 Vk> argue.  The biggest issue is they're generally walled gardens, requiring
 Vk> users to keep a multitude of them on their devices.  And real time short
 Vk> messaging is well covered by these apps.
 Vk> 

It is an annoying situation to be sure.  Having different messaging systems, each with a different subset of your contacts, each with its own interface, notifications.  I've dropped all but one.

 Vk> As for web forums, that's a whole different kettle of fish.  Web forums
 Vk> suffer from a "one size fits all" mentality, when it comes to the
 Vk> interface.  The idea that _everyone_ wants to use a web based GUI
 Vk> interface that works in a particular way is rather absurd, really.  Most
 Vk> web forums from here are very sluggish, because of the number of
 Vk> requests required to build a page (with ~200 mS RTT on each set of
 Vk> requests - most forums are on the other side of the planet, and physics
 Vk> kinda gets in the way).  I have had better performance out of locally
 Vk> installed web forums, but the navigation still leaves a bit to be
 Vk> desired.
 Vk> 
 Vk> One thing some modern BBSs (especially Synchronet) do well is diversity
 Vk> of access - web is there, as well as telnet, POP/IMAP, NNTP for
 Vk> messaging, with FTP also available for file transfer.  And one can even
 Vk> go totally offline for messaging (as I am now).
 Vk> 

Web forums can be responsive, but they are generally not built that way.  Some discussion places, such as Reddit are horrendously slow, and only made tolerable with TUI clients such as "Reddit Terminal Viewer".

I would like to try NNTP to access a BBS discussion, I do mostly just use the BBS itself, and occasionally use Multimail.  I do prefer a "text mode" interface, which is less cluttered, allows focus.  This view would be a minority view, I bet.

Being able to upload/download a QWK packet without having to log in through telnet and go through the BBS interface would be a major hurdle overcome in making it more accessible.  This would mean that a QWK reader on the mobile could draw new message, and upload, without having to deal with the issues of rendering an 80x25 interface to be navigated for updates.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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