Hello Philip.

19 May 06 07:41, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>>>> And if he didn't read P4 he can be mislead. He attempts to
 MvdV>>>> send an application to net/9999, fails and gives up. He never
 MvdV>>>> gets to know about the existence of P4. One potential new
 MvdV>>>> node lost.

 PL>>> But he/she is SUPPOSED to have read P4 and acknowledge that in
 PL>>> the new node aplication.

 MvdV>> No, he is supposed to have read P4 before he is issued the node
 MvdV>> number. There is nothing stopping a prospective sysop from
 MvdV>> applying without ever having heard of P4.

 PL> Except not follwing the right proceedure.

You can deny the node number if he does not follow procedure. But you can
not stop him from filing an application anyway before reading P4. For the
simple reason that you do no know about him before he succesfully contacted
you in some way. If he attempts to contact you by trying to send a netmail
to net/9999 an fails, you will never even know about his existance.

 MvdV>> Anyway, if the applicant *has* read P4, the net/9999 entry in
 MvdV>> the nodelist has no added value.

 PL> Except to indicate the preference of the net in the case of new node
 PL> applicants.

What added value is there to advertising a preference? What added value is
there to *having* a preference in the first place? Are yiou going to deny
the node number if he does not folow the preferred method? No of course
not. a prospective sysop either succesfully makes contact or he doesn't. if
he succesfully makes contact he gets guided through the process no matter
*how* the first contact was made.

If his attempts to make contact fail, you will never know he even existed...

 PL> Realisticly, somebody isn;t going to pick up a nodelist one day and
 PL> say "I wanna be in that so I'm gonna join".  They will
have had some
 PL> sort of exposure to Fidonet, and will most certainly ask questions of
 PL> somebody who -is- in the nodelist.  It doesn't at all seem likely that
 PL> somebody would be attempting to send a new node application without
 PL> some prior knowledge of what the proceedures are.

Indeed. A prospective sysop will most likely have some prior knowledge.
here in Europe that prior knowledge most likely will be that he is active
as a point.
Almost all knew nodes started out as a point. He will *not* use the
net/9999 number when he applies for a node number.

 PL>>> If one does a search on "how to join fidonet", it would be
 PL>>> crystal clear.  The information is out there... everywhere.

 MvdV>> For those who already have fair idea what to look for....

And for those having Google capability.

 PL> If somebody does't have a fait idea of what Fidonet is in the first
 PL> place, or exposure to it, then there would be any logical reason to
 PL> think soebody would be looking to join now, would there?

Someone could have a fair idea of what FidoNet is, even be a user, but not
have a clue where to start looking anyway. Especially if he does not have
Google capability. He just *may* stumble on a nodelist and think the
net/9999 number is the clue.

Michiel

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