Saturday September 03 2016 08:01, you wrote to me:

 AI>> Those two echoes have always been sysop echoes where sysops
 AI>> discussed whatever was on their minds.

 DD> Yes - chatter. No reason to exclude non-listed from that.

Yes - Sysops chattering. That's the part you keep missing.

 DD> What percentage of those users are renegade - and what percentage of
 DD> those renegades need to be brought to the whole sysop world's
 DD> attention that we need a special place to do it?

I have nothing here but fido and othernet msg bases, shareware and a few games.
There is nothing here for renegades so they are not a problem.

 DD> You have you net/region/zone echo for sysop business. Chatter is just
 DD> chatter.

Yes we do, but then sysops from other zones would be missing. That's not a good
thing. Fidonet is bigger than net/region/zone.

 DD> You still have FN_SYSOP and FIDO_SYSOP to chatter in, access has not
 DD> been removed from you, you have lost nothing.

Under your plan we will have lost our sysop echo. It would become a chat echo.

 DD> We gain potentially a few more opinions/threads by allowing others in.

Here in fidonet we have every opportunity for opinions/threads. If you don't
have an area for that just connect to one.

 AI>> Those two echoes are sysop-only echoes where sysops chat between
 AI>> themselves. No elitest snobery or secrets about it,

 DD> "sysops only" defines exclusivity - elitist snobbery!

It's no more elitist than people who enjoy cooking to chat in the cooking echo,
or people who run synchronet to chat (technical maybe) in the synchronet echo,
or people who run mystic to chat in the mystic area.

 DD> FN_SYSOP, and FIDO_SYSOP is where we all are though if they want to
 DD> chat with us, that is where we are.

We are there because that is our echo. That was the idea when the echo was
created and that meaning was made clear. If that's not what your looking for
then you are in the wrong place.

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20160322