HPAVC/HPAVC CD-ROM.iso/BBS-GOD.ZIP/GODS1.TXT

Text File | 1990-11-08 | 23KB | 454 lines

                      The Electronic  GODS guide

                        to the 10 golden rules




RULE <1> Do ALL in your power TO be Obnoxious to the user


        1.1 Subsection A - How to be Obnoxious.

        Users are to have unlimited access exept for downloading.
        Users Paging sysops when they are asleep are deemed 1 hour's
        worth of line noise whilst they are trying to download a file.
        Whenever a user says they are suffering from line noise it is
        important that you simply say "Looks clear on my screen' This is
        the most annoying thing you can do to them. When/if they attempt to
        haras you further then its time to make a special access level for
        them, or turn on the M-5 error Correction (Tech-referance section
        1.1A-B).  Another top way to anoy the user is to turn off his line-
        feeds so all he sees is 23 lines of Ansi Screen on one line. There
        are several others such as, Reset his or her more prompt to two
        lines ( this one is always popular), or just hold down the pause key
        on your consol ( This one also gets a good larf at the sysops end) and
        finally no self-respecting sysop ever lets a chance to type for a new
        user to totally confuse and bewilder him go bye ( This one is important
        and is a requirment if you whish to become a quallified Electronic God.)
        One last anoyance for the user is for the sysop to go into sysop chat
        with the user , ask an involved question that will take a lot of
        typing to answer, then leave just before the user sends it and return
        just after that and say sorry i missed that . ( This one is good for
        sysops with visitors in his room they can all enjoy the joke . PS save
        this trick for the really slow typist they enjoy it the most.



        1.1 Subsection A Tech Referance 1.1a1 - How to Make Noisy Lines

        Firstly for that Special type of user, the type that spends all
        his/her time downloading files at 300 baud the noisy line treatment
        usually will get rid of him/her. Go to the socket, open the front
        panel by using a screwdriver, make sure its insulated or you'll
        have a nasty surprise. You'l need the following :-)

        1 x 50 ohm resistor
        1 x Capacitor
        1 x 250cm multiconductor wire
        1 x soldering iron
        4 x clip type things that will fit on fone things (metal conductors)

        now split the wire into 2 = bits, solder the resistor onto 1 and
        the capacitor on the other then attatch the clips to the other ends
        of the resistor and capacitor. now attatch these new wires to your
        phone line and then attatch the other plugs to the plugs on the end
        of your wire, this will quite effectivly get rid of users giving
        them extreme cases of terminal line noise.

        ** I TAKE NO RESPONSIBLILITY FOR BROKEN MODEMDS AS A RESULT OF THIS**


        1.1 Subsection A Tech Referance B - M-5 Error Correction

        Now because modems these days are too good at filtering out line
        noise its is neccesary to make use of the M -5 error correction
        Tecnique, this is made possible through various meathods, one is to
        alter your phone line. A simple bit of insulated wire is acceptable
        along with a few minor adjustments to your phone socket and
        computer mptherboard (at the fan socet powersupply). You'll need
        the following.

        1 x Soldering Iron
        1 x Eletric 12v DC motor
        1 x Flexible insulated wire.
        1 x 1M of multicondictor wire

        now, open your computer and get the fan wire, take off some of the
        insulation and tap into the powersupply with your long piece of
        wire, now attatch this wore to your DC motor. Solder the smaller
        piece of wire onto the revolving end bit of the motor. Glue the
        motor to your phone socket so that the small piece of wire can
        flick onto atleast 2 terminals  simultaniously causing a small
        powercut - resulting in line noise thus creating M -5 Error
        correction :-).


RULE <2> HOW TO HANDLE PRIVATE MAIL.

        Section II
        Subsection I.I05a

        Part (a) Section II Subsection I.IO5a

        Allways read private mail I repeat allways. This can be
        justified on the basis that you  were looking for pirated software
        or abusive language

        Part (b)
        If possible edit private mail before the user receives it and
        distort the meaning of the mail .( This is also a great crowd pleaser
        if you have visitors with you )

        Part (c)
        Another great mail trick is to forward private email in to the
        general message area, or if the message is of the abusive nature
        then forward it to the user that its about and ( If the user askes
        how it got there always blame him with A statement like
        'DONT YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THE SYSTEM YET' or 'Bloody Software'
        will usually do the trick, if he persists refer to
        section 1.1a induce line noise.)


        Part (d)
        Mail with file enclosures must be checked as it could be a
        copywrited program , If it is grab it for yourself and then delete it,
        if its a public domain one just get an editor like norton's and
        change a few bytes of the EXE or COM file . ( This is good as the
        reciever can wast time downloading it ( you can larf as he does
        his 40 min d/load as you know the programm wont work.)

        part (e)
        There is the nastier type user who will encript a file with a
        password, NOW THIS IS SERIOUS you cant read it or look at it , The
        only answer is to delete it ( if you cant have it why should he ).
        Because of the serious nature of this offence the user should have
        line noise induced every time he/she goes to upload private mail.


RULE <3> HOW TO DESCRIBE YOUR SYSTEM.

        Section III
        Subsection I.I06a

        Part (a)
        Always Claim to have  more phone lines than you actually
        have, and number your lines by 2 this will make a 4 line system
        look like 8 .

        Part (b)
        Files and storage, When adding up the online files available
        allways include all your floppy drives, hard drives, backup disks
        and the capacity of tape drives ( These drives do not have to be
        in your system you can include all close freinds computers as well)
        As a rough guide never claim less than one meg. Also if
        your drives are MFM always class them as if they where RLL
        or Perstored.

        subsection (1) of part (b)
        Files are allways added up in non-compressed form


RULE <4> HOW TO GET THE MONEY.

        Section IIV
        Subsection I.I07a

        Part (a)
        Now if your bbs has more than about ohh.. 200k storage and
        about 2 message areas then it is seriously worth
        considering making people pay for access, after all the
        logic of users is that if you have to pay then it must be
        good. As long as you follow RULE 3 in full you'll have no
        worries getting the sukkers to pay. Also when the new user
        arrives dont let them read or look in your message/file
        sections make them curious. If a BBS that runs half
        or half the time at only 300 baud can squeeze $30 out from
        some people then surely any other sysop can score a buck or
        two from some silly people

        Part (b)
        How to go about making the Bulletins to draw people in. Use
        a colour scheme so that it catches the eye, but be careful
        not to burn peoples retina's with colours like bright white
        with orange text. Use BIG words as to make people think you
        are not an Electronic-GOD. BUT be careful not to make
        this screen too bland, red on black is quite suitable, or
        flashing blue on flashing red/green is a big hit in US
        Electronic GODS systems.


RULE <5> MENUS

        Section IV

        Subsection I.I09a
        Part (a)
        Menus must be kept on the confusing side as we Electronic Gods
        need to make the user feel totally intimidated by our ability
        to whiz him through the different sections .

        part (b)
        Still on menus , never use the first letter of the command word
        as the key to activate the command a better system would be say
        the roman number system or even better the hexidecimal value of
        the third letter of the command eg <0E> for Goodbye or <IIVX> for
        File Areas . If a user ever complains or offeres advice refer back
        to section 1 and its subsections.

        Part (c)
        Allway make sure your menus are 80 chrs wide and 24chrs long as to
        annoy people with telix and that sort of software and in Ansi only
        this will make it impossible for all your users who still have 40 chr
        monitors to see the menu commands and its even funnier if they don't
        have Ansi all they see is [[37;1m^6h 's all over there screen .( If
        only you could be there to enjoy the joke with them ) but still you
        will have the satisfaction of knowing that sooner or later you will
        get one of these suckers.


        Part (d)
        Colours, yes colours are important, I will attemt to pass on years
        of expirence to you up and coming Electronic Gods .Recommended colour
        combinations, these have proved very unpopular amongst users.
                1)   Flashing RED on PURPLE
                2)   Flashing YELLOW on BRIGHT GREEN
                3)   Light Blue on Bright Green ( this is almost unreadable)
                4)   Normal PURPLE on CYAN ( this also is very hard to read)
                5)   Dont for get the black on black menu for the new user
        this one really gets them and will give you, the Electro God hours of
        larfs watching them stumble through it woundering what they did wrong

        Part (e)
        Spelling, Try to mis-spell a lot of the commands so that the user
        will bearly be able to understand what you mean, This is good for
        them as it teaches them to think. Electro GODS after all like
        all gods ARE permitted to spell documents and menus as the deem.

RULE <6> HOW TO NAME FILES.

        Section IXX
        Subsection I.I38a

        Part (a)
        Remember to give files confusing names that do not relate at all to
        the software eg. A database file could have a name like 180_4_O-3.zip
        a name like this is sure to give you a chuckle as they try to remember
        it as they get five or six ( file not found messages) while trying to
        download it.

        Part (b)
        Trick number two , if the file is a zip give it an ARC extension or
        Pak , even though you cant enjoy this little sysop joke online you
        can allways picture the frustration in you above average mind as the
        user tries to uncompress it . This is good for business as he will
        ring back looking for a later version of the de-compression utility.

        Part (c)
        If the user wakes up to your godly tricks with extentions you still
        have a trick up your sleeve , in file names with several zero's in
        them slip in an uppercase letter "O" , with the colours you have
        set  the user will find it very difficult to pick the difference.
        eg. change a file called CU0001.pak to CU00OI.pak notice the upper
        case letter I instead of 1 . With practice this will all become
        second nature to you ... and your sysoping will just turn into one
        endless larf ....

RULE <7> HOW TO HANDLE SYSOPS OF OTHER BOARDS.

        Section VXI
        Subsection I.I57a

        You've just raided some mortal sysops board of about 200 files
        and you sudenly find them on your board.. This is where the true
        test comes in, any mortal sysop would collapse under this
        burdon. but wait with the aid of your new Electronic GODS guide
        Book you can defeat this mortal. Firstly turn on the M -5 modem
        correction device every 2 minutes and quickly install the line
        noise device (tech section 1.1a 1.1) and switch it on. If you
        are really tricky you can whip to dos and make some changes to
        your bbs making sure that sysop cant page you. Now if this
        mortal manages to somehow defeat you in this first case dont
        worry, after all your only an apprentice. Now you are faced
        directly to the other sysop, he abuses you, tels you not to raid
        his system, at this point your flying you have him where you
        want him, flick the m -5 modem error connection and explain you
        where simply getting a few essentials and it wont happen again.
        If the mortal sysop then remebers thet you raided his board last
        week and the week before your in a spot of bother. You then have
        to make a decision. You can opt for the mortal way out by simly
        saying someone musta got your password --OR-- You can take a
        huge step in the ways of an Electronic GOD, and tell him of
        wonderfiles from the US that your mate is sending you. This will
        be enough to make him weaker and you'll see him change from a
        nasty mortal into a greedy filescabbing mortal sysop, he'll say
        Oh.. thats nice or something, and when he does you have him. You
        tell him you'll upload some new files that no-one else has.
        He'll usually go away at this point but if not a severe case of
        line noise followed by ripping the fone connection from the back
        of your modem will ease you of this problem. Now for the tricky
        bit, you have to go and raid somene elses system for the
        required files, eather make them REALLY old and change all the
        dates and version info or actualy get the real ones. An
        Electronic God would get Both, the REAL new ones for his own
        system and the old for the Mortal sysop..

        Part (b)
                What to do when another god advertises his bbs on your
        board. Never delete it this is the mortal thing to do, a true
        Electro God will leave the message online but edit the phone
        number in the add and replace it with the fax number of a local
        business. This is a very godly move as the fax will answer the
        modem but drop the carrier , The BBS will get a really bad name
        for bad phone lines and wasted calls . The Advanced God may even
        choose to use the advertisers Parents home number , this is dirty
        bbs'ing but after all you are fighting to retain your position as
        El Supremo Super Electro God and you don't want an apprentice god
        to even get a taste of the power , so crunch him quick and nasty.


        Part (c)
                If you are one of the MEGA GODS (multi line bbs) there is
        another option open to you . Your system is quiet so don't waste
        those phone lines , plug in modems and ring all the one line bbs's
        so no one else can use them .( This is getting into the advanced
        God Reference manual stage so I will drop it for now but watch for
        the next publication ADVANCED MEGA GODS DIRECTORY OF DIRTY TRICKS)



RULE <8> HOW TO RUN A BBS ON THE CHEAP.

        Section XXXV1
        Subsection I.I90a

        Part (a)
        Now you have the users money the last thing you want to do with it
        is actually spend it on the bbs , Here are a few tips on how to
        keep your running costs down.

        1a) Only buy an xt clone with a 1.2 meg floppy drive or at most
        a 10 meg hard drive. This is all you need to have over two gigs
        of files availiable to your user.

        2a) Now you have the hardware ring every other bbs in town and
        download there catalog of files , Join all of these catalogs
        together and display them as your file listing. If a user
        actually gets to try and download a file ( Remember you still
        have the M -5 noise inducer running and unreadable menus) just
        have the system throw up a message, section closed for maintain-
        ance ring back tomorrow , this will give you time to ring the
        other BBS and download it for him.

        3a) As time goes by you will actually accumulate a meg or two of
        files that you have had to get in for the most persistant down-
        loaders. This is the time to start the begging letters Tell the
        users that a big expansion program is under way for them but un-
        less they can make a $20.00 donation the bbs may have to close
        ( This one allway works as the user will want to protect his
          access to this fine bbs ..)

        4a) Now you dont want to have to keep downloading files for the
        users so just re-date the files you have to the current date
        say once a week and upgrade the version numbers (Nortons again)
        then ask for more money to help pay the phone bills ( Tell them
        all this new software is downloaded daily from the States )
        after a month or two completely change the names on all your files.
        The users never even notice as they never run the software they
        download anyway.

        5a) You are truly on your way to becoming one of the immortal
        Electronic Gods once you master the being cheap section of the
        manual. Dont forget spend all the subscription money on useless
        junk not related to the BBS.. When you run out just threaten to
        close again and the money will roll in ...



RULE <9> FIDO-NET unRULES and Regulations

        Section IIV
        Subsection I.I07a

        As your system gets going and becomes extremely popular but you
        feel it lacks the 12,000+ messages that mortal sysops claim to
        have then it becomes essential for you to proceed and get echo
        mail for your system. Personally i find Binkley to be a supurb
        program as it has a 20second delay which if you dont ave an esc
        key can be extremily annoying. Now after 15 minutes of setting
        up your frontdoor it is neccesary to make 'bombing-runs' to all
        other bbs's around that place, specially to mortal sysops bbs's
        that you find particularly annoying. A bombing run consists of
        making a few false net-mail messages containing copies of random
        clusters of your hard disk whuch you have converted into files
        via nortons utils. These packets as they are called are to be at
        least 500k and are to be Zipped as no system supports the .zip
        mail packet unpakthingo's. Make taylor designed mail packets
        specially designed for people that you know only have 2 meg free
        are to fill that persons disk and make it impossible for them to
        unpack it. Also the up and coming Electronic God MUST blame these
        bombing runs on the software please (section 1.1 (c)). After you
        have had fun making all these calls out its time to direct stray
        packets through your host network to more boards, preferably sending
        a message in an international echo area with a heafty 2meg of file
        attatched filized clusters, this will not only annoy your host
        but hundreds of other sysops that recieve that particular echo
        area and if you are VERY lucky you'll get the
        Net_Zone_co-ordinator sending abusemail and or thousands of
        other flame mail messages from all the sysops you have burdened
        with this superflouse trick.


        later on too **

RULE <10> Bulletins and Questionares

        Section IIV
        Subsection I.I07a

        (a) How To make log on bulletins. It is very important for you to
        make at least 8 system messages or so to waste a users time make
        these totaly irrelivant to the bbs and make sure that they cannot
        be paused or aborted. A true God will even include ANSI in these
        and special codes to flash the users password in random places.
        This brings me to mention the special tricks of Note-takers, as
        few special codes placed in here by a user will show up the name
        and password of whatever user sees it, This is very handy and
        extremily annoying for a user. The joke is quite good as the
        user will rush and change their password, little do they know
        that no matter what they change it to it'll still show up on the
        screen. This little trick is worth doing specialy if you have
        visitors that can larf with you as the user wonders what has
        happened. The bulletin on the other hand is slightly more
        serious and you must mention all the good points on your system,
        now if you are a GOD then you'll have all good points and thus
        have to make about 10 pages of solid text with GODLIKE spelling
        all through. You must make sure you repeat every feature at
        least 2 times and describe your system as is done in section 3.
        After these pages it is a good time to ask for money as users
        will be exited about all your files and message areas and all 96
        phone lines. Colours are also important, use colours described
        in section 5 Sub-section I.I09a Part B as these will get the
        best results.

        (b) Questionares

        Another important part of your bbs is the questionare files,
        these MUST contain at least 19+ questions some of which going
        into detail beyond the comprehension of mortals. Questions such
        as 'Whats your name' are Pisspoor and must be replaced with
        statements such as 'What was your dead second cousins third
        generation grandmother's nephew's niece's uncle's intention that
        your grandmothers daughter should denounce you as?' now after a
        user has answered all 19 or more questions along the same line
        as that then they should have almost run out of time. If however
        a user manages to get past that with still more time left then
        you must deduct their time so that they get the 2 minute warning
        followed instantly by the ** Time's Up ** message, however this
        may cause a few little problems next time that user logs on, you
        must simply tell him the crystal in your machine was running at
        400 Mhz and the clock flew a bit fast. That should be enough to
        blow their mind. Now to class yourself as an Electronic God you
        should delete the answer file every couple of months to make ALL
        users go through the ritual of the Questionare.