-=> Quoting Gordon Gilbert to Bonnie Goodwin <=-
 -=> Quoting Bonnie Goodwin to All <=-
 
 BG> Does anyone know if the Fidonet echos are ported to USENET style
 BG> newsgroups currently somewhere on the Internet? This would be the
 GG> Some are, but I don't think this happens automatically.
 It could indeed be automatic.. once you set up a script, of course.
 GG> I'm not sure exactly how messages are gated.
 I'm not sure exactly how many /ways/ there are to gate to and from the
 Internet. A bunch, for sure..
 GG> The only echo I know of that is gated has the Internet side in the form
 GG> of a mailing list.
 I'm an assn. moderator on MUSIC. That echo gets many times the traffic
 that y'all do here, so perhaps you'll be interested in our recent
 experiences with the Big I.
 In a word, they've been uniformly negative. The main problem, at present, is
 that many systems are making fido.music accessible to Usenet auto-posting
 programs. And 97% of what comes through is againt the rules (solicitations
 for tape-trading, for-sale ads, solicitations for sevices offered, a few
 quite extraordinarily broad and sweeping flames, etc..). Worse, they are
 practically impossible to effectively moderate. When you try, you usually
 get no response from the renegade ISP in Helsinki. Or, you get a response
 from a really nice ISP who explains that, since the message took 3 jumps
 before it got to his gate, there's nothing he can do.
 BG> Another option is moving entireky to an Internet newsgroup,
 BG> another is to use a maillist approach.
 That has merit. Maillists work pretty good for some things.. and audio might
 be one of them. However, I find them less interesting than a more structured
 and (relatively) immediate format such as an echo.
 GG> ..if it's unmoderated (bad news)..
 I agree! Very few unmoderated forums have a good enough signal-to-noise
 ratio to hold my interest, long term.
 GG> I think a 2nd moderated Usenet group could be a good thing..
 Yes. But don't look for /me/ to lurk any more!  ]:-)
 GG> ..since many are afraid to speak out on rec.audio.high-end because of
 GG> all the industry professionals and engineers on there that have a some-
 GG> what low tolerance for opinions stated as facts and the bad rep many on
 GG> rec.audio.opinion give it.
 I mostly just /lurk/ here, because of similar reasons..  :-/
 GG> OTOH, rec.audio.opinion is just a madhouse of bickering and cat fights
 GG> with the "green pen society" on one side and the "Scientific proof-
 GG> needers" on the other.
 My objection to unmoderated forums..
 GG> A more laid back group like rec.audio.opinion that is MODERATED, could
 GG> be useful indeed, but know now that the requirements of a moderated
 GG> group means much more work for the moderator.
 Yes, this is best, really. The reason that I wouldn't scan this forum in
 such a format is more arcane than an objection to the technique. I /do/
 dislike the idea of a moderator scanning each message before it's posted,
 though. It just doesn't conform to Fido ideals..  
 The real reason is that I just don't do the Inet, except for email.
 The WorldWideWait is a joke for a home user, IMHO. I can get only a dialup
 line, and even with a 28.8, I get very poor throughput. And the lines are
 noisy, so they frequntly fall back to 9600.. or drop carrier.. :-( Until we
 get fiber optic to the curbside, or CATV modems, forget it.
 The Inet over a good text-only front-end is moderately interesting. I had
 such a link for 3 years. Anonymous ftp is a marvelous thing!   I dropped
 it because of the cost, mostly, and truth to tell, I'd like to have it back. 
 My /main/ objection to Usenet is that I've never found a door that could
 gate them into QWK, or better yet, BW, and make them work smoothly in both
 directions. I simply will not bother with doing echomail without an OLR..
 and I've tried /several/ times..  ;-)
 NP: Little Jimmy Dickens _I'm Little But I'm Loud_ (Razor & Tie RE-2107-2,
     1949-1965/1996) "May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose"
... Don't give a hug when a handshake will do. -the dbs      
--- GEcho 1.11+
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