On Sun, 05 Apr 2015, Bill McGarrity wrote to Kostie Muirhead:

 KM> Strictly out of curiousity at this point: What is the process of 
 KM> starting a new echo if one were so inclined?

 BM> Here's a link...

 BM> http://www.tlchost.net/echolist/modhelp.html

maybe not the best link and certainly out of date but it works...

really, to start an echo, you create a message area and get others linked to
it... at some point one may decide to have it distributed by the backbone so
that other systems can also carry it without the additional burden on the
originating/hosting system... part of creating the area is to come up with an
ECHOTAG that's not already in use... it can be anything but is generally a
short 8 character string that is close to the echo's ""long name""...

for cartage on a backbone distribution system, one may be required to have the
echotag registered in a/the echolist... some distribution systems may have
other requirements... if one doesn't want to go this route, they can always
distribute their echo privately and manage links on their system directly...

)\/(ark