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Text File | 1985-03-15 | 13.8 KB | 264 lines

WHY I DO IT P. L. Olympia Sysop, SUGI SIG/M RBBS, 301-963-5249 02/08/85 PURPOSE The purpose of this little piece is to explain to you who are users of my RBBS why I operate the board and why the BBS has the "pecularities" that it has. I also want to let you know what it is like being on this end of the modem line in the hope that once you understand what it is like to be a Sysop, you will be more sensitive to the code of behavior expected of you as an RBBS user. There is one other reason for this piece: I am increasingly forced to adopt certain restrictions that are diametrically opposed to my "religion" of keeping an open RBBS. I have always said, when I first started this, that I would rather shut down the BBS than adopt certain policies that I find distasteful. So, if one day you call, and find the phone just ringing, you will know why. Let me say at the outset that in my experience, many RBBS callers observe the ground rules and truly deserve the service. If you belong to that group please do not be offended with what I have to say here as any offensive remark you find in this piece clearly is not meant for you. WHY I DO IT I operate the SUGI SIG/M RBBS as a free public service for several reasons: o Computing, particularly DBMS and telecommunications, is my hobby. I run a lot of experiments with the BBS for my own intellectual growth; o As a forum of information exchange among SUGI SIG/M members in particular, and the public in general; o To repay those Sysops and users who have shared with me (from the early years when I operated a private CP/M BBS) some of the best public domain programs in the world; o To help responsible novices get started (I was a novice too at one time) so that they may later share their knowledge with others; o I have watched RBBS-PC grow over the years, and I lamented the fact that unlike RCP/M, no one bothered to organize and maintain a comprehensive and up-to-date list of RBBS's in the country. I knew that doing that is a lot of work, but someone had to do it. I "volunteered" to be that one. Thus, one of the important functions of the SUGI SIG/M RBBS is as a repository of the most complete and up-to-date RBBS list as a service to the entire RBBS community. The SUGI SIG/M RBBS, like most boards in the country, is a professional BBS intended solely for serious business users. It has an educational games section only because most serious professionals have children who might use those games to get started. Mine did at the age of four and is now doing very well, thank you. I like to think that my RBBS is one of the best in the country. If it is not, it is NOT because I did not try. I am still trying. WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING? I am a firm believer of an open RBBS, that "registration" is totally unnecesary. I was convinced that users who have been provided a useful and free tool will, at the very least, observe certain ground rules laid out by the Sysop. For more than six months, mine was probably the only RBBS-PC in the country where no daily time limit was imposed - a user can log on any number of times on a given day so long as she waits at least 20 minutes between calls to give others a chance. While 95% of the callers did just that, the rotten 5% spoiled things for everyone and I was forced to impose the daily time limit you now labor under. As if that were not enough some callers persisted in logging on under fictitious names despite my plea right there on the Welcome screen that aliases are not tolerated on the board. Some did it because they never matured; others did it as a way to get around the daily time limit so that, to paraphrase Jim Anderson in his REQUIEM.TXT (which is required reading for you), the "pigs can feed some more at the trough". Against my will, I was then forced to institute a policy that new users cannot download files or perform most normal RBBS functions until they leave their name, address and phone. The policy was meant to be temporary; I have removed the restriction twice in two months only to institute it again, because a very small minority of callers made life difficult for me and everybody else. The day I adopt this policy on a permanent basis is the day I shut down this BBS. I think that new callers owe it to the Sysop to leave the information as a gesture of COURTESY even if the BBS does not have a registration policy. I encourage my callers to tell me where they work only because I deal with a lot of companies and just in case my business folds, I would like to have a place to recommend to my staff. I look at that as a service to the companies because my staff is very good. Most BBS in the country now has a "registration" policy. And who can blame Sysops for adopting that? I know for a fact that a Sysop would prefer not to have that policy were it not for a very small minority of immature, delinquent and inconsiderate callers. Just so you understand some of the reasons for that policy, take heed of a Sysop's pet peeves below. I do not speak for anyone but myself but I am willing to bet that my own pet peeves are also other Sysops'. MY PET PEEVES 1. THE SYSTEM CRACKERS Crackers (not "Hackers", the press has caused much confusion in terminology) are the lowest form of life. They are a bunch of delinquent nincompoops who find special delight in trying to break into BBS's to cause irreversible damage in the hope of depriving people a free and useful service. I am fortunate in that out of about 6000 calls thus far, I have been visited by these slimes only 15 times and all attempts to break into the system have been fruitless. These jokers have tried many times to download the RBBS secure files including user passwords, commercial programs (a definite no-no) used to operate the RBBS, and even my AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files which contain nothing that will help them. Ninety percent of these delinquents call at 300 bps, one reason I will no longer support 300 bps in the very near future. These frustrated crackers vent their frustration by leaving nasty messages. And I thought I already have a wide vocabulary! I am getting tired of these delinquents and hereby issuing fair warning. If you are a twit, start growing up. The next time you try to download a forbidden file from me, the system will give it to you, but if you try to use it ... bingo! 2. THE GIMMES Jim was right on target in his condemnation of callers who labor under the illusion that an RBBS is a one-way street that exists only for the enrichment of their software collection. It is sad but true - the majority of callers fall under this category. I have entertained the idea of modifying PC-TALK so that it only has a DOWNLOAD function. Might as well. The upload function has never been used by these callers. I was going to re-issue the program under the name ... you guessed it ... PC-GIMME.EXE. If you are a novice, no one is blaming you if all you do is download. One of the reasons for an RBBS is to help novices get started. It seems to me, though, that once you have downloaded 40 or so files, you should have benefited from those files and stopped being a novice. It is time to repay some of those folks who helped you. I have two callers on my system who have downloaded 230+ files and uploaded NONE. I hope those fellows download this file - their last. Not everyone is born to be a programmer. Even if you do not have an original program to contribute to the public domain, there are many things you can do to help your Sysop. I am still naive and believe that most people would like to contribute and may not know how. Well, here's how for a start. One, if you see a message on the board (you do know that there is a message section on the BBS, right?) from someone asking a question or asking for help, and you think you have the answer, by all means respond to the message. Don't just depend on the Sysop to provide a free consulting service to everybody. Two, if you discover something useful either in the course of your work or as a result of reading an article or whatever, don't keep it to yourself. Either post a message on the BBS or write a little text file and upload it. Three, a Sysop should not have to call all over the country so that you may have files to download. If you run across a new and useful file on another BBS (particularly if it is long-distance from your favorite Sysop's BBS), upload the file. Some callers think that Sysops do not want their files sent to other boards. Nothing can be farther from the truth. All public domain programs are meant to be shared and all boards exist for that purpose if nothing else. Just the other day I sent one of my original programs to my favorite board in the South, and later that afternoon a Sysop from NJ sent me the same file that I had just released a few hours earlier! There are two severe forms of "gimmes". One is called "vulturitis" and afflicts a very few (thankfully) who logs on every single night - at prime time at that - and picks off the files as soon as the Sysop puts them up. Another form is called "author-gimmes" and afflicts two users on my BBS who have authored one or two useful programs that somehow found themselves on other local boards but mine. These fellows are regular "gimmes" on my board. I don't get it. 3. THE INCONSIDERATES The inconsiderates (1) download a file then go to Peoria while the file transfer is in progress and let the system time out and log them off, (2) just drop carrier when they're done without the decency of issuing G(oodbye), (3) calls to see the color screen and hear the Welcome music, drops carrier then calls again for another round of color and music, (4) sign on with multiple aliases for more time at the "pig trough". 4. THE CONTROL-S'ERS These callers like to do a CTRL-S to prevent the screen from scrolling without realizing that unless they caused the system to do otherwise, the system will pause per screenful of lines. If you belong to this group you should know that (at least on my system) whenever you do a CTRL-S, both partitions of Multilink freeze and I am not able to continue whatever I am doing in the foreground. I promise you that I will only tolerate so many CTRL-S in one session particularly during daytime when I am at the office using the machine in the foreground. I will always drop carrier on CTRL-S users who call in at 300 bps during the day as that compounds the problem. You should know that extensive screen listing at 300 bps slows me down in the foreground. Thus, if you have a choice of ASCII or XMODEM download, pick XMODEM. If you are an incurable CTRL-S'er, call at night - very late at night. 5. THE INGRATES These hopeless creatures do not bother to read the bulletins and become very upset because their access level is low. One even left a message saying "I demand a high access level". Demand? Have I got news for you buddy! You use this BBS because I say so. You don't use it for the same reason. This is not your birthright. I think Jim said much the same thing. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO RUN AN RBBS? By now, you should have an idea of what a Sysop's life is like. If you are thinking of starting a first-class RBBS, you should know that it takes infinite patience and a lot of time. I spend an average of two and a half hours a day on the RBBS doing such things as responding to comments and messages, uploading files from home, changing new users access level, organizing file directories, deleting useless files, looking new files over and updating bulletins particularly the RBBS list. You must love computing to be a Sysop. You also have to be crazy. PARTING NOTE I would like to end this piece with a note of thanks to those callers who have made running the RBBS worth all the heartburn. I am priveleged to have a community of 25-30 callers (out of almost a thousand) who know what RBBSing is all about. What makes the SUGI SIG/M RBBS unique is not that it has far more out-of-town callers than local callers, but that it has this small community of users who have gone out of their way to help the system grow and who think of the RBBS as their own. Which, of course, it is.