-=> Quoting RICK MILLER to ALL on 11 Feb 14  12:47:42 <=-

 RM> I am in the process of re-starting the BBS I ran back when I was in
 RM> high school circa 1993-96. Naturally, I am running Renegade with
 RM> Net2BBS, and am also using DBridge to handle the fido stuff once I get
 RM> a node number. 
 RM> I explained it to my friends as building a house 20 years ago, and
 RM> now wanting to build another, and you're looking at a pile of lumber
 RM> etc. in the yard trying to remember what you did 20+ years ago. 

Welcome back.  :)  Hopefully it will be like the proverbial bicycle..
all come back to you once you actually try... :)

 RM> What I want to do is figure out what the best way to attract new users
 RM> is. Certainly years ago it was the file section - at least that's what
 RM> most people did on my BBS back in the day was to log in, jump to the
 RM> new files area, do a new-scan, and then if there was nothing, to log
 RM> off again. It seems to me that certainly since most people now-a-days
 RM> get their files via the web, I probably should focus more on the online
 RM> door-games  and to try to build up a healthy level of discussion on
 RM> the message boards. 

As a user (never been a sysop, but done some co-sysoping in the past,
and a long-time user of a number of different boards), I'm seeing less
file snatching, and more game playing...  There aren't a lot of boards
nowadays that do a lot of local messaging, but that's something that has
always appealed to me.  I choose my new bbses by whether they have what
I want... in my case, access to the Fido echoes that I'm active in
(there's a few smaller nets that I also follow and having them is
sometimes what I'm looking for as well), with a viable offline door (BW
preferred, Qwk will do)... and the couple of games that I enjoy playing
with others, like Scrabble and KOTB...  Admittedly I may not be totally
typical...  :) 

 RM> For those of you that are sysops - or have been in the past - what
 RM> have you done to make yor system unique? I mean, yeah, having Fidonet
 RM> etc is cool, but, pretty much any telnettable BBS has fido access now,
 RM> (and I will too, once I get my node number) so what are the things that
 RM> make your system stand out?

What makes my "home base" bbs stand out is the sysop that has an active
role on his bbs, being available for problems, being active in the local
message bases, being involved in at least some of the Fido areas, being
involved in at least some of the games...  It was the main bbs I went to
back in the day, and when he returned, it became my main bbs again...
Having your own character show through on the bbs helps to differentiate
it, whether with nice screens or how you set things up etc... And being
stable helps a lot, too...  ;)

 RM> I do know that I want to create a system that gives something
 RM> "special" to the people that dial in via modem. IOW - if
you take the
 RM> time to set up a dial up modem and connect to my system just like in
 RM> "the good old days", I want to make it worth your while.
I just am not
 RM> sure what exactly that "something special" should be. 

I still have my modem set up, but pretty much totally use telnet, since
it ends up being the same experience as the old dial-up days, without
being long-distance tolls...  If you make your bbs attractive, it will
appeal to both.  :)  If you were local to me, and were dial-up, I might
use dial-up, but even the local ones to me now are only telnet... but as
I said, it seems to be just like the old days all the same...  :)

ttyl         neb

... Everytime I have all the answers, somebody changes the questions
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20