Charles Angelich (1:106/2000) wrote to Steven Horn at 03:50 on 25 Apr 2003:

 CA> You aren't 'crossing me'. My experiences are not debatable.
 CA> When you disagree with what I say I experienced you are
 CA> implying that I am a liar or a fool. Either accusation would tend
 CA> to make a person a bit 'curt' in their reply?

You might simply have been drawing incorrect conclusions from your
experiences oryou might not have appreciated that your experiences were as
limited as those of any others here. 

 CA> We were not in the same city, state, (country?) when I was
 CA> first exposed to BBS that carried FIDO messages. You seem to think
 CA> you remember my life better than I do or you think the FIDO-police
 CA> prevented sysops from doing whatever they wanted to do with their
 CA> computers?

That we were not in the same city, state or country says nothing more or
less than that we may have had different experiences.  I don't pretend to
remember your life because I am not interested in it.  However, our
recollections are subject to empirical verification.  

 CA> I predate FIDO messages. I was online prior to the existence of
 CA> FIDO exchanging messages on "The Source".

And you paid a pretty penny for that privilege:

"The Source initially charged users $100 for a start-up fee, though
that was reduced to $49.95 in August 1984. Hourly rates varied from
$7.75/hour to $27.75, depending on the baud rate of the user's modem and
the time of day of access. Initially, users connected at 300 Bps, but the
speed was later increased to an optional 1200 Bps as The Source became
available in 400 cities. The minimum connection fee was $0.25 per call and
the minimum monthly fee was $9."

Having paid that kind of money for access to The Source, you were worried
about a small BBS access?

 CA> Do you know these things as a result of your telepathic powers or do
 CA> 'the voices' tell you what happens in the rest of the
 CA> world you know nothing about?

Should we ever match our life experiences, I doubt that mine will be quite
as insular as yours.  Furthermore, as an active Fidonet sysop for 15 years,
my experience with that organization is bound to be somewhat more extensive
than yours. 

 CA> Those are _your_ facts from your perspective. My experiences have
 CA> been exactly as I have stated them. Not quite the same as your
 CA> experiences.

Have your experiences been as a member of a community of sysops. 

 CA> Comparing FIDO to Compuserve is like comparing the flea to the dog.

Perhaps.  But I note the dog is dead.

 CA> I'm not going to discuss personalities here. Netmail is a bad joke

If you weren't going to discuss personalities, why did you mention one?

 CA> IMO. We don't need to debate it. We disagree.

And do you always pass off your personal assessments as general truths? 
Routed netmail is problematic as email is for that matter.  Direct netmail
on the other hand is not but since it appears you have never been a
sysadmin in a network, you would not be aware of that.  

 CA> Could be regional terminology? Remote sysops help maintain a BBS
 CA> but do not physically sit at the keyboard of the machine that runs
 CA> the BBS. They do what they do via 'remote' access.

And could the sysop who had primary responsibility not have put a stop to that?   

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+