[this is somewhat lengthy, but some interesting things were said about "whiney" members, and their "place" is our BBS world] From: Sysop To: Paul Tibbals Okay, now that you've spent fifteen minutes answering my message in great detail, explaining how and why HST modems are "far superior" to v32/42 ones, I should recant a little bit and explain that yes, I very much would have liked to buy a DS modem for the board, but my BBS budget last year was spent on the gig drive, which I figured benefitted everyone, whereas the DS modem only would have helped out you, Ofer, Milamber, maybe a few others. Actually, in thinking about it, given the startup and operating costs a SysOp faces, it might be construed that the burden of "dual standardship" falls on the caller, not the BBS. I have a number of callers who have that supra-fraz Supra modem, and while they kid me for not being 14.4k, at least they appreciate the 9600. I suppose at this point that if I get many more complaints, the only reasonable thing to do would be to slow the board back down to 1200 for a few weeks, just to add a little perspective to the whole thing. Yep, a damn good idea... From: The Beastmaster To: Sysop I hear what you're saying. After the time and money you spent making this one of the best Amiga boards around, I'd tell em' to kiss my behind. Although I don't have a lot o paitence with whiney people. From: Sysop To: The Beastmaster Unfortunately, part of a SysOp's job description is to put up with whiners and complainers...at least it is unless you're Rich Bremer...and no board's gonna please everybody. Spend a ton of money on a one-gig drive, what'ya get? Complaints that your modem's not fast enough. Buy a new modem and what'ya get? Complaints that you're only one-line. Put in fifty new lines and what'ya get? Complaints that the menus are jerky when more than seventeen people are on the board at once. Buy a 4000 and what'ya get? Complaints that the menus are too jerky when more than forty people are on the board at one time, and a suggestion that you buy a Cray! Buy a Cray and what'ya get? Complaints about the software, the non-optic phone line cable, the slow 38.4 baud rate, the wife's figure and your bad breath. Buy the entire planet, give everyone a 76.8 baud modem, install optic cable everywhere, hook up every phone line in the world to the board, hire eight Nobel prize winners to design your new software and what'ya get? :) From: Bob Cosby To: Sysop The way I look at it a BBS should have a message right at the beginning of the log-on screen: "A BBS is the last of the benevolent monarchies. This is *MY* BBS run at a loss for my pleasure. If you have suggestions I will listen. I guarantee nothing. There is always another BBS up the road and you can feel free to start your own." In fact, when I get my own off the ground that's what I *will* put up! Coz From: Sysop To: Bob Cosby Heh, damn straight advice, buck. It's just like a driver's license, "a privilege, not a right". The mistake I made, if any, was to use the word "BBS" in the board's name. Use that little word and people start to assume all kinds of things. Lots of people out there believe that there is something blasphemous about altering an original BBS file in the slightest, up to and including leaving things like anim players in with the anim, if the original author so packaged the file. Hurumph! Not here, buddy! I started the board with 800 of my own downloaded files, and nothing used to burn my ass as much as getting yet ANOTHER ShowAnim or Movie1.3 or MoviePlayer with my download. I've also got some righteous moralists on the board who think it's wrong to delete a meaningless 200k source code to some 20k worthless hack, or 20k worth of idiotic German docs, but I figure blashemy or not, you've got to exercise some common sense at SOME point. I also usually capitalize all the programs and docs in the file, delete any zzenpads and .DISPLAYMEs, rename "READ.ME!!.DOC!!" files to a more reserved, polite "ReadMe.doc", include icons when they're needed, add countless ReadMeToo and mini.doc files, and in general treat the whole file like it's going into my personal library, which it is. As you suggested, if someone actually WANTS that ridiculous 200k source code, they can always hoof it down the road and find it on a board run by a more indiscriminatory SysOp. I also have the nerve to actually step in and correct the spelling in someone's doc, and (hope you're sitting down) I even have the unmitigated gall to actually filezap someone's program to fix a spelling mixtake. Now this is blashemy, indeed! And hey, it gets worse! I file-zapped an extremely popular file that's been running around the boards for the last month or so, and it WASN'T a spelling error! It was...may I be frank?...just downright fucking rude. I changed the "Puny Human" in UChess to "Mere Human". From: Bob Cosby To: Sysop It's the Socialist Disease: "I have access to it, therefore it's mine." Coz From: Keith Remmes To: Bob Cosby nah...my bbs opening message will state: "This bbs is a totally imperialistic society in which I am the Dictator for Life and your suggestions will be ignored and if they are offending to me, I will persecute you in a very creative and cruel manner in which you will almost certainly be embarrassed in front of your peers. All rules and regulations will be enforced with an iron claw and any breakage of these will permit me to punish thou with extreme prejudice. From here on out, thou will be known as a peasant and you will all kiss my butt to get any kind of access on here. Have a nice day!" How's that for an opening of a bbs? Preferably mine. Dictator for Life From: Sysop To: Keith Remmes Ha! Thanks for the good laugh! The "claw" instead of "hand" was a nice touch. Added that certain -tang- of unrealism, heh. Anyway, thanks, with the nice response from you, Coz and Ed, I guess we won't being going back to 1200 baud THIS week... ;> From: Gary Weir To: Bob Cosby I like that, that's good! "....benevolent monarchies....." Well put! From: Sysop To: Gary Weir I prefer "God's Realm", but sure, the "monarchies" thing works fine, too. :) From: Bob Cosby To: Gary Weir It was meant not only jokingly but serious as well. How many times have we seen a user sniveling because some minor detail was out of their standard? It's one thing to suggest but these twits seem to think a SySop somehow OWES them. It's the Socialist Disease I say again. Coz From: Gary Weir To: Bob Cosby I agree completely, as a former CoSysOp elsewhere, I know what a pain some users can indeed be. And I concur wholeheartedly, it is "the Socialist Disease".........or from what I've observed usually, the guy who hasn't had to work for a living yet who thinks everyone should pay his own way......8-) ..and I phrased that to include some senior members who still think their parents are taking care of them.....8-) From: Sysop To: Bob Cosby Not playing Devil's Advocate or anything, but I do have a small counterpoint to all of this. I've made a number of improvements to the board (including making it do a few backflips that it's not supposed to do, like read contents of archives), and I include in this category the entire message base and the Quick Menus, as well as eliminating all the zzenpad.foo's on the board...and all or most of that came from the snivelling of a few members (you know who you are!). It's kind of like how the TV stations say "one letter represents a 1000 voices"...if I've got one guy hollering and nagging and whining because I don't have Quick Menus, then I figure that there are others out there who want them too, but just don't make the request or mention it. If it weren't for Robbie and Max and Asher and the rest of those clowns, we'd probably be discussing this on Mission. Remember, my original concept of the board was as a "Library", none of this message base stuff to hog so much board time. But I was wrong; it's proved invaluable in a number of ways, so, bless their whiney little ways. On the other hand, if Asher takes one more poke at BBS-PC, I'm gonna knock him on his can! :) [Asher can be, at times, the classic BBS Brat. And gee, funny thing, here he is now...] From: Asher Feldman To: Sysop Dang, ya know the editor on BBS-PC is a real piece of............. :-> From: Sysop To: Asher Feldman What editor? You call that "erase line" business an "editor"? You sure got a broader definition of the word than I do! Otherwise put, sorry to hear you can't operate one of the clearest and easiest to use message base editors ever written. Delete line? Edit line? Something about that a little, uh, shall we say, "difficult" to comprehend? Perhaps expanded docs or a small primer on the subject? Perhaps an interactive AmigaVision tutorial? I'll get to work right away! (actually, it might astound you how -quick- some people are at using this "editor", myself included. And besides...this is a PD base, who the heck cares about spelling, punctuation...CONTENT, for that matter, heh...) (I read over my note to you, wanted to make one small change, I typed in "e13", made my one quick change, hit S for save and was outta there. Total elapsed time for editorial correction: 4.8 seconds. It's impossible for me to see how any other editor could have done it faster, up to and including a full-screen editor with cursor control. Moving the cursor up three lines and over thirty-five spaces and x'ing out the word and re-typing it would have taken longer) Hey, wait a minute...you took a dig at BBS-PC! It's a plot!! The coup d' etat has started! Don your armor, men! From: Asher Feldman To: Sysop I was wondering how long it would take you to notice. :-) ..........The troops slowly advance..................... From: Bob Cosby To: Sysop Please remember I was differentiating between suggestions and sniveling. This is just a suggestion, of course. 8^D Coz From: Sysop To: Bob Cosby And luckily, not a sniveling one! I guess, like usual, this breaks down quickly into its various philosophical components. To wit: it's "okay" for someone to make a sniveling suggestion, but not for them to make a suggestive snivel. Conversely put, it's okay to snivelly differentiate, but not okay to differentiate snivels. Okay, I think we've got things cleared up now... [ and that was enough of THAT! ] %Z