Concerning _Vote stuff_, Marc Chabot said to Troy H. Cheek in SCANRADIO:
 MC> The worst question a journalist can ask to a politician is why he
 MC> wants to be elected, then the politician starts b*llsh*tt*ng he
 MC> wants to help the poors, he promises no new taxes (read my lips),
 MC> and so on...
 MC> 
 MC> So...  Why do you want the moderator job?
 MC> 
 >> I think I'm qualified to the do the job and,
 >> if elected, I'll be happy to do so.
 >> ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
 MC> 
 MC> Why?
This is an article I'm composing for FIDONEWS.  I think it will answer your 
questions as well.  Just skip past the soapbox stuff.
Some say Fidonet is dead.  Obviously, since I'm writing this, and you're 
reading it, and it went through Fidonet, then Fidonet isn't dead.  As long as 
Fidonet isn't dead, it will require people to run BBS's, maintain nodelists, 
move messages, and moderate echoes.  People who catch a lot of flak and get 
very little praise, but people who are required nonetheless.
I've moderated a few Fidonet echomail conferences over the years for various 
reasons.  The ones I moderate right now, however, have exactly one thing in 
common:  They were abandoned without notice by their previous moderators.
I took over echoes which were "dead" or "dying".  You want to hear something 
funny?  All of them are still active and still on the backbone.  Had I not 
taken over, it's possible some of these echoes would no longer exist.  But 
they would not have died because of lack of interest of the end users; they 
would have died because nobody with the proper knowledge bothered to update 
an echolist entry.
In my mind, there's no doubt that the eventual demise of Fidonet will _not_ 
be because there are no longer any end users (lured away by the promise of 
the Internet and other factors), but because the people who do the vital jobs 
of Fidonet will give them up under the mistaken impression that they are no 
longer needed.
Back in the early Fidonet days, the stand-alone BBS was declared dead.  After 
all, what single BBS could possibly compete with a nation-wide network?  And, 
hearing this solemn announcement that they were dead, BBS's closed shop or 
joined Fidonet.  A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral, though.  
Some of the BBS's didn't listen and continued to operate for as long as they 
still had callers. Some operated for years.  A few are _still_ operating to 
this day. And I've been known to call a few every now and then.
Fidonet has been declared dead, killed by the Internet.  In spite of being 
dead, there are still a lot of people using it daily.  So, should we close up 
shop, forcing all these users to find other means of communication?  Or 
maybe, just maybe, should we keep the doors open until the message packets 
actually stop coming in?
By all means hook into the Internet!  Learn about the World Wide Web and news 
services and electronic mail!  Make new friends!  Discover new sources of 
knowledge!  But since you can do all these things without giving up Fidonet, 
why do so many people demand we do exactly that?  Are they afraid that if we 
don't take their word that Fidonet is dead, instead of waiting for the mail 
packets to actually quit coming in, that it just might take years or even 
decades before Fidonet really ceases to exist?
As long as I still have access to Fidonet, and as long as there are still 
echoes that interest me, I'll keep posting messages.  And as long some of 
these echoes need somebody to send in echolist entry updates and perform the 
various administrivia functions, I'll still be a moderator.
Troy H. Cheek, VID_GAME Echo Moderator (among others)
... Taglines are the Rest Room walls of Fidonet!
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