Cross posted with permission.
-----Original Message-----
From: WINServer@winserver.com [mailto:WINServer@winserver.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Henry
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 1999 11:12 AM
To: WINServer@winserver.com
Cc: WINServer@winserver.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: Why BBSes are Dead?

 Suchit,
Your post struck a chord! I ran a Wildcat! BBS from 1979 to mid 1997. By
that time I was fully involved as an ISP (UNIX, T1, etc.) and finally let
the BBS go. I had purchased WINS, however, since it's Anihilator pre-release
and I've upgraded ever since, though never installed. We have 'Catacombs BBS'
(www.cat.hurontario.net) co-located at our facility, though run by someone
else (Ron Warzin, SysOp) and that keeps me close enough to the 'fold' I
guess.

Anyway, I think one thing that BBSs can do today to survive and flourish
is to add local flavour and content the the Internet can't provide and
work out an arrangment with a local ISP to co-locate and get 'on the net'
as well as provide local dialup. The ISP can then be more than just an 'on
ramp' and there is mutual benefit.

One thing SysOps must do if they are going to survive at all is be more
open. Get rid of ridiculous upload/download limits and message writing
requirmets. TRUST in the bulk of your users to use, rather than abuse,
your system. When I ran AMBASSADOR BOARD, then the largest area BBS (there
were 12 here at one time!) I provided free basic access, had no download
limits and never put a 'write so many messages' demand on my users. We had
active message bases, busy chats, games players (phones used to light up
every two hours around the clock for Barons moves!) and out of over 1400
users I think I had one file hog who spent his (paid for!) two hours a day
downloading everything he could from my 24 CDs (4 online, 20 indexed for
file requests). Now _those_ were the golden days of BBSing!

Steve.



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