Hello Terry,

On Saturday November 23 2019 11:38, you wrote to me:

 TR> There are still a lot of Fidonet sysops who run a BBS and still get
 TR> users,

If you say so. But if there are indeed a "lot" of sysops running a BBS with
users, there must be an even greater "lot" of users. Where are they? I don't
carry all the echos, but I don't see a "lot" of users. In the last couple of
years, I have only seen two. Tim Richardson and Lee Lofaso. Only the first
writes via a "real" BBS, the latter writes via the system of a sysop that
grants access via JamNNTP. For the sake of argument I will count that too as a
"BBS".

If these "lot" of users do not actively participate in Fidonet, what relevance
do they have for Fidonet?

 TR> in my case I get (telnet & html) mainly users but nothing like before
 TR> when most BBS has a 1000+ callers.

A thousand? You really had over a THOUSAND users? As in a one with three zeros?
How many of those were real lasting participants? How many of them just logged
in once or twice to never be seen again? Was the user data base cleared after a
period of non activity or did those "users" remain in the data base forever?

 TR> What has changed in Fidonet, we still move echos and files, there are
 TR> some new protocols being used and the Fidoweb. Still moving A to B
 TR> etc.

Lots of things have changed in Fidonet during your 15 years of absence. You
apparently missed the Fidonews coup. It triggered the birth of the Fidoweb and
with the Fidoweb Fidonet finally killed top down control of echomail. So much
for the plus side. On the minus side there is the dramatic decline in number of
participants and volume of echomail content. A conservative estimate is that
there are less than 200 active participants left in Fidonet. It should come to
no surprise that most of the echos on the so called "backbone" are dead. Most
of the echos that remain are below critical mass, Not enough participants to
keep the conversation going. It is only a handful of echos that have real
traffic. Like this one. There is hardly any echomail content not elating to
Fdionet itself. Ir was decades ago that I stopped asking around in Fdionet when
f.e. I had a problem with my car. Just not enough espert knowledge around to be
of use. I go to the forum dedicated to the make and model of my car and voila
there is where the expertise is. In my native language... So much for moving
echos...

Moving files? What files other than fido dedicated files such as Fidonews and
the nodelist. The irony is that what made it affordable to move files around
the world - The InterNet - also made it superflous. If I need a driver for my
graphic card, it is much quicker and effective to search the InterNet than
waiting for someone in Fido to dig it up...

Yes, Fidonet has changed. It has become a shipping company without passengers
and without cargo. There are just the ships and the crews. We keep the ships
going because we like to keep the ships going. But that's just it.

 TR> I know there are now many sysops who don't run a BBS and just use the
 TR> echos, they may as well be points.

My guess is that most of those sysops running a Fidonet node with a BBS will
wholeheartedly disagree with your theorem that they may as well be points. Me
included.

 TR> I am all for that, get more users whether they be nodes or points.

Keep on dreaming...

 MvdV>> In case you have not heard about the Fidoweb yet:

 TR> I have been using it for some months, mainly to get some echos my main
 TR> uplink doesn't get.

That is just laying another link for echos not on the "backbone". It is not the
Fidoweb.

 TR> If your uplink was reliable and worked like designed you really don't
 TR> need the Fidoweb.

"Uplink" is an outdated concept. In the Fidoweb there are no "uplinks" and
"downlinks". In the web there are just links.

 MvdV>> Well, I am not. I am not a wildcat sysop, I am not even a BBS
 MvdV>> sysop, Like most sysops in this part of the world, I shut down
 MvdV>> the BBS because the users either switched to pointing or went
 MvdV>> to greener pastures.

 TR> Your choice, mine is to still run a BBS like so many other Fidonet
 TR> sysops.

"Many" as in the same order of magnitude as the ones supporting IPv6? In that
case I would say it is not that important any more... ;-)

 MvdV>> I am sure you are familair with the expression: "fix the roof
 MvdV>> when the sun shines".

 TR> Yes, I live in the tropics :)

So you have lots of sun... to fix the roof.

 MvdV>> Translated: get familiar with IPv6 now, now that it is not yet
 MvdV>> a matter of life and death. If you wait until you no longer
 MvdV>> have a choise, it will be much harder.

 TR> I am not against it, I am actually all for it and have ideas about how
 TR> I can make use of it but until my provider supports it I will stay
 TR> with IPv4.

Then just hope that when your provider makes the switch, you won't sudddenly
find your IPv4 behind CGNAT. Because then you will be in the position of only
discovering the roof is leaking when the rain seison has started...


Cheers, Michiel

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