-=> Quoting Eric Oulashin to Sean Dennis on 07 Jan 11  21:56:23 <=-

 > thing we call "cyberspace".  While I appreciate people
trying to come up wit
 > new and interesting ways to interface BBSing with the Web, I feel by doing 
 > that, BBSing loses its individuality and its niche appeal.
 EO> That's one reason why I like to run my BBS.  These days, though, by
 EO> letting people telnet into a BBS, I feel that BBSs have already lost
 EO> part of their appeal, but besides adding a real phone line, I don't
 EO> think there's much we can do about that.  Most people these days don't
 EO> have a telephone modem anymore and use the internet for their online
 EO> stuff, so accessing BBSs via telnet makes sense.  In the late 90s, when
 EO> I first heard about telnet BBSing, I thought telnetting to a BBS was
 EO> silly and I didn't see the point (why telnet to a BBS when you can dial
 EO> into it, or when you could use the internet instead?).  I decided to

I didn't take to telnet until there were no longer any local bbses that
I could dial in to... If there were any now, I could still do dialup. 
But, as a user, I really don't see much difference between telnet and
dialup... it uses a different program to do the "dialing", and one
doesn't hear the handshake any more... but once you get to the bbs, it's
just like having called POTS.  Telnetting lets me access a bbs located
anywhere, without long-distance fees... and the main thing for me was
still having access to my Fidonet echoes, howsomever I could/needed to
do that.

 EO> shut down my BBS in 2000 when I thought BBSing was pretty much dead and
 EO> obsolete, but I decided to start up a BBS again in 2007 when I started
 EO> feeling nostalgic, and I've enjoyed it. 

You weren't the only one... I know of quite a few others...  :)

 EO> Sometimes I miss the early-mid 90s, calling my favorite BBSs, and
 EO> running my own, but these days I've gotten very used to 24/7
 EO> connectivity to the internet and having the world at my fingertips all
 EO> the time, and being able to keep in touch with people easily on the
 EO> internet, I don't think I'd want to give up the internet.  Without 24/7
 EO> internet, I feel a bit disconnected and isolated. 

Each to his own.  :)  I'm not totally connected to the internet, myself,
and my BBSing isn't all that different than it ever used to be... a
short list of primary and backup boards, each with its own flavor, that
I call pretty much nightly to grab message packets from (and try to not
get too far behind on answering messages, even though that often can't
be nightly), and maybe play a Scrabble game (or similar) on...  As some
here know... I'm still pretty much totally DOS, by choice, and that
helps to limit some of my internet activity...  ;)

ttyl        neb

... Did you expect mere proof to sway my opinion?
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20