Hello Kees,

 KvE>>> I am not completely shure what you have in mind, nor that it will
 KvE>>> improove communication within Fidonet.

 LL>> It is time for an upgrade.  Should have been done long ago.
 LL>> But now is good, as waiting longer only means more delay.

 KvE> I am looking forward to your next release of software that runs on the
 KvE> mismash of hardware used in Fidonet, that will enable this upgrade.

I have an abacus.  Doesn't even require electricity.
Will that work?

 LL>> It matters not a witt what any ZC accepts or does not accept.
 LL>> It is sysops who matter, and if this what sysops want (an upgrade)
 LL>> then it will be done - regardless of what any ZC chooses to accept
 LL>> or not accept.

 KvE> So why didn't it happen over all these years.

Sysops have become too complacent, allowing others
to do the work for them.  Lazy bums.

 KvE>>> or is
 KvE>>> everybody going to build his own Nodelist,

 LL>> If that is what it takes, and is necessary, then that is what
 LL>> will be done.

 KvE> I fiully agree.

Sysops are who make fidonet what it is (for better or for worse).
Sysops can change it anytime they want, when and if they want.
But nobody, not even a single sysop (regardless of position within
the network), should tell or impose his/her own views on others,
as doing so would be anti-democratic.

I realize the argument will be made that fidonet is not a democracy.
But that is a cop-out, given the community of sysops (fidonet) is by
definition a democracy.  The organizational structure of fidonet may
not be a democracy, but the community of sysops is a democracy.

 KvE>>> with just HIS name spelled in some weird encoding.

 LL>> Weird to you, perhaps.  But not to the one who spells his/her
 LL>> own name.  ;)

 KvE> I have my gripes as well with US hegonomy in IT. In sorted computer list
 KvE> my name is sorted under V, we do use a prefix as a primary key for
sorting,
 KvE> so it should be "E".

Atheist: "Praise the Godless!"
Feminist: "Praise the Goddess!"

See what a difference one letter makes?

 LL>> Okay, let's follow this to its logical conclusion ...

 KvE>>> It is my beleif, that even if we stepped down to numerical ID's, we
 KvE>>> would be better served than by using incompatible encodings as we
 KvE>>> whish, or an all encompassing encoding, that the majority cannot use.

 LL>> .... from now on every Fidonet sysop around the world will start
 LL>> communicating in Mandarin Chinese, the most widely spoken language
 LL>> in the entire world.  ;)

 KvE> I am not new to Fidonet, next week or the week after, I am listed as a
 KvE> fidonet sysop for 25 years and always a a node serving others.

Look for the silver lining ...

 KvE> Nowadays I scruntinize the nodelist minutely, in a effort to find flaws
 KvE> in makenl.

Flaws?  The Goddess does not make mistakes!

 KvE> I can ussure you that the chance that the number of sysops that will want
to
 KvE> communicate in Mandarin could be 1 of you round the number to the first
 KvE> next interger. For writing Mandarin messages to yourself you do not need
 KvE> Fidonet.

Fidonet originated in the USA.  Had it originated
in China, the primary language would be Mandarin
Chinese rather than English.  And then it would be
the lonely American who would be writing messages
to himself/herself ...

 KvE> Fidonet is not the tool for Mandarin networks,

Fidonet is becoming more and more a tool for Russian
and Ukrainian networks rather than American networks.
I would say European, but Russia and Ukraine are both
European countries, and everybody knows that Americans
are horrible spellers when it comes to the English
language.  Just think of what it would be like for
Americans trying to have a fidoconversation in Russian
or Ukrainian using the Cyrillic alphabet.  I mean,
just trying to get their keyboards to work would be
a monumental accomplishment ...

 KvE> and you cannot shoehorn it into one and certainly not this late in the
life
 KvE> of Fidonet.

Maybe we should all start using pictograms.  ;)

--Lee

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