CD Shareware Magazine 1996 December/CD_shareware_12-96.iso/DOS/Comunic/STLOUBBS.ZIP/FEFAQ.TXT

Text File | 1996-07-18 | 21.6 KB | 387 lines

***** Answers to the questions most commonly asked of Fire Escape *****
                        Updated July 18th 1996
      ===========================================================


1. What is Fire Escape?

   Contrary to popular myth, Fire Escape is NOT a BBS. Fire Escape is a
PERSON! Fire Escape began collecting BBS numbers in 1989 in an effort to
put together an ACCURATE and up-to-date BBS List for the St. Louis Area.
At first this was an EASY task, as Fire Escape didn't know about more
than 40 or 50 BBSes. But as the list circulated and when others saw that
it was being kept current, Sysops began to send their BBS numbers to
Fire Escape and the Fire Escape BBS Directory was born. Over the ensuing
years the list grew and grew in size and detail and was soon accepted as
the definitive BBS List for St. Louis. As the BBS Directory grew it also
required more maintainence time, so in an effort to simplify the data
gathering process, Fire Escape decided to open a BBS of her own to
function as the Headquarters of the BBS Directory effort. This BBS went
online on All Saints Day (November 1st) 1992. Today it has grown from
a little 1200 Baud 5 Meg 8088 to a 28.8 Baud 2.5GIG 486-50 with 5 nodes.
Sysops from all over St. Louis drop by the HQ every week to deliver the
latest information on their BBSes. So if the BBS is hard to get through
to, you know why. If you'd like to call Fire Escape's HQ to let her know
about your BBS or to give some feedback on the directory or this FAQ
sheet, then dial [phone]. The BBS is up 24 hours a day every day.

If you can't get through to the BBS and have access to the Internet, you
can send feedback or BBS information to Fire Escape through her husband's
internet mail account at: [e-mail]  Address all corespondance:
"Attention - Fire Escape" and she will be sure to get it whenever her
husband collects his mail. Hopefully Fire Escape's BBS Directory HQ will
be Telnet-able sometime during 1996.

Fire Escape's BBS Directory for the current month can also be downloaded
directly from the World Wide Web at: http://www.crl.com/~marcb


2. Why does Fire Escape put out this BBS Directory?

   There are several motivating factors involved in the "why" of the
BBS Directory. Here are a few of them:

   A: Fire Escape wants people who are new to the BBSing hobby to be
      able to find BBS systems which match their interests quickly and
      to have a vast selection of boards to choose from.

   B: Fire Escape wants new sysops to have as much publicity as possible
      so that their BBSes will have an equal chance to compete with more
      established BBSes in the community. Many good BBSes go offline
      every month because no one "noticed" them and the sysop gave up
      due to frustration over lack of callers. This should not happen.

   C: Fire Escape got disgusted with the lack of accuracy & detail in
      most of the BBS lists she had so far encountered. Operator messages
      were more common in these "listings" than modem sounds. So in the
      immortal words of her dear sweet mom she decided to "stop her
      whining and do it herself". Hence the Fire Escape BBS Directory.

   D: CONTRARY to vicious RUMOR, Fire Escape DID NOT create this list to
      keep "tabs" on illegal BBS activities or to provide a "hit-list"
      for governmental agencies or greedy phone companies. Although she
      does not personally condone the distribution of Non Public Domain
      files or sexually explicit materials to minors, she has never gone
      out of her way to report such boards for these illegal, unethical
      or immoral activities. (If a board is law-abiding and moral, then
      they have nothing to fear by appearing in this Directory. Those
      boards which encourage or engage in the above activities do so at
      their own risk).

      Fire Escape is NOT affiliated with NOR employed by either a
      governmental agency or a phone company. Fire Escape will not resist
      the government in enforcing it's laws but it is NOT her motivation
      or concern in compiling this Directory. Any allegations to the
      contrary are simply unfounded & malicious lies propagated by those
      who either envy her popularity or desire to deprive you, the users
      of St. Louis, of a very useful BBSing tool. You decide.


3. How does Fire Escape find the BBSes which go into the Directory?

   Fire Escape reads message bases (generally BBS ANSI AD conferences) on as
many boards as she has accounts (roughly 2 dozen). These ADS provide her
with information on new BBSes as they open to the public. Fire Escape also
scans through old BBSlists & writes to people who claim to be sysops for
any new information which might lead to a new or little known BBS. Fire
Escape also receives dozens of letters from sysops and users every month on
her own BBS. The number is 314-741-0341.


4. Does Fire Escape REALLY call EVERY BBS in the Directory EVERY month?

   Fire Escape makes every attempt to connect to each BBS listed in the
Directory each month. Sometimes BUSY signals will prevent this, but for the
most part, over 90 percent of all the BBSes get verified, if not by actual
connection, then by the fact that they are BUSY and not disconnected.

   On approximately the 10th day of every month, Fire Escape begins first
calling all the NEW BBSes for the month, those entries which have arrived
since the last edition of the Directory was released. After these calls
are completed, she calls all the BBSes which have been removed from the
Directory for various reasons in the past 6 months. This is done to catch
any BBSes which have resurrected themselves. Occassionally a BBS will go
offline due to sysop problems or hardware failure only to return in a few
months. This is the phase in which Fire Escape finds such BBSes and returns
them to their spot in the Directory. After these things are done, she then
calls all 350 plus BBSes from the previous month's edition beginning with
the letter A and working through them alphabetically until a few days later,
she finishes with the Z's. Then the BBS News Update is generated from the
notes that Fire Escape has made during her "rounds" and it's all packaged
together to form the BBS Directory file which you see on so many BBSes.
Once out, users will spread it faster than bees spreading pollen and it
usually makes it to most of the other BBSes in time to be obsoleted by the
next edition <grin>.


5. Does Fire Escape do EVERYTHING all by herself?

   Yes. Fire Escape does ALL of the work herself.


6. Does Fire Escape get PAID to do this?

   No. This project has always been a non-profit labor of love to the BBS
community which Fire Escape loves so dearly. However Fire Escape won't
refuse donations from anyone who feels generous enough to contribute. If
you would like to contribute to the BBS Directory effort, you can join
Fire Escape's BBS at 741-0341 and make a donation. The BBS boasts a
diversity of nice shareware, multi-line chat features and online games.


7. If a Sysop lists their BBS in the Directory, will there be any cost?

      No. There is absolutely no fee involved with appearing in the
Directory. It is a free public service. The phone company has nothing to
do with the Directory, nor is there any recourse they can take to increase
ones phone bill because of a BBS listing. The phone company can only charge
business phone line rates if a sysop makes a monetary profit from their
BBS Service (i.e. a pay board) or if they buy (with money) commercial
advertising for their system. Since sysops don't "buy" their listing in the
Directory, then it's not considered a commercial ad. So all in all, it's a
completely safe way to get a BBS noticed.


8. Will the FBI or the government hassle Sysops if they list their BBS in
   Fire Escape's BBS Directory?

   No. The FBI does NOT bother law abiding bulletin boards. They are only
interested in BBS violations concerning "Non Public Domain" (COMMERCIAL)
files and violations of local and federal pornography laws. If sysops do
not violate the law in either of these areas, they need not be concerned.
Fire Escape can not guarantee that the government won't download her
Directory and use it as a telephone book (like any other BBSer would),
however she does assure sysops that being listed in the Directory is in no
way detrimental "provided" the individual BBS is observing the law on these
matters. IF a BBS DOES distribute NPD or make pornography available to minors
then Fire Escape recommends that sysops ask her to remove their BBS from her
Directory. Fire Escape is not a mind reader and doesn't keep notes on who is
keeping or breaking the law. If a sysop doesn't want to run the risk of
having suited fellows knocking at their door she recommends that sysops
avoid carrying NPD files and take serious measures to restrict "ADULT" access
to minors. The FEDs are gonna find criminals with or without her Directory.
IF a BBS doesn't tread this dangerous line, relax and advertise FREELY. Fire
Escape is MORE than willing to remove from the Directory ANY board that
desires to avoid the "public eye". She doesn't particularly WANT to advertise
boards of this nature anyway!

Send all removal requests to Fire Escape, c/o Fire Escape's BBS Directory HQ
at [phone]. If it doesn't come directly to her at this BBS, she can't
delete the BBS based on the word of another user. If it's important to a
sysop then they should come talk to her!!!!! You can also get and keep your
BBS unlisted by placing the following notice somewhere on your logon screen
where anyone connecting to the BBS can read it:

"This BBS does not wish to be listed in Fire Escape's BBS Directory. This is
a private BBS that would like to keep a low profile."


9. Fire Escape's BBS List used to appear in the PC Journal. What happened and
   why is Fire Escape's Directory NO longer published in that paper?!?

   Fire Escape is not affiliated with the PC Journal and never has been.

      Fire Escape had granted The PC Journal permission to publish her BBS
Directory in their paper. However, the PC Journal was unwilling to publish
her Directory uncensored. The PC Journal wants to distribute it's magazine
in the local high schools and felt that it was in their best interests to
not carry Fire Escape's Directory because her list contained bulletin boards
which some parents found objectionable and were afraid their children might
find their way onto them simply because they were in the listing.

      Since Fire Escape does not believe in censorship and was not willing
to remove these BBSes from her list or segregate them, the PC Journal then
excercised editorial rights and began to filter out boards from Fire Escape's
listing at their own discretion. The response from the community of sysops
was less than enthusiastic about this and thus to avoid further bad publicity
the PC Journal replaced Fire Escape's Listing with their own personally
compiled list of BBSes. BBSes which apply for the PC Journal Listing are
screened according to the PC Journal's standards of BBS acceptability.
Therefore you won't be seeing Fire Escape's listing in the PC Journal anytime
in the future. Sorry folks. This wasn't my decision and it's not my fault.

As a result of my unsavory experience with this local newspaper you will not
see my Directory published in any more newspapers as I have no wish for
a repeat performance of the grief I suffered at the hands of the PC Journal.
If you run a newspaper and have even considered approaching me, I advise you
NOT to even think about it. You won't get a very warm reception. Sorry, I
never make the same mistake twice.


10. There are several BBS viewing programs floating around to view Fire
    Escape's BBS Directory, wether they really work or are any good, Fire
    Escape can't say. You can judge for yourself though. Here is a complete
    list of the viewing utilities and directory conversion programs.

    - VIEW 1.03 usually under the file name: BBSVW103.*
    - FELIST 1.0 usually under the file name: FELIST.*
    - CALL VU 1.0 usually under the file name: CV1.*
    - FE2COMMA 1.0 usually under the file name: FE2C10.*
    - FE2TM 1.02 usually under the file name: FE2TM102.*
    - FIRE CONVERT 1.0 usually under the file name: FIRECONV.*
    - C-LIST 1.6 for Windows 3.1 (16-Bit): CL1616.*
    - C-LIST 1.6 for Windows NT/95 (32-Bit): CL3216*.*

Note: The C-List program for Windows is the most recent utility and is
configureable with an .INI file to make it updateable whenever the
Directory legends are altered (ie., new softwares, new modem speeds).

View 1.03, FE List 1.0 and Call VU 1.00 are all DOS based and about two
years old. They may not work with the current version.

FE2TM 1.02 and Fire Convert are programs that convert the Directory to
the DOS based Telemate Dialing Directory format. Again, they are about
2 years old and may not work with the current edition.

Lastly the FE2COMMA program takes the Directory and converts it to a
standard Comma Delimited Database format (.CSV) which can be utilized
by many communications programs as an importable file from which a
dialing directory can be created (ie., Procomm Plus for Windows).

All the above programs are available for download from the BBS Directory
Headquarters BBS at [phone] and [phone].


11. There are Dialing Directories which contain all of Fire Escape's
    BBS Directory, but they aren't for the current month, how does one get
    current versions of these? Does Fire Escape put these out?

    No. Fire Escape does not create these Dialing Directories for Telix
Telemate and Qmodem (DOS versions). They are created by Curt Kaeser, sysop
of THE RARELY CALLED BBS. He compiles Fire Escape's BBS Directory into
these dialing directories and makes them available at logon every month
from the Rarely Called BBS at [phone]. He also uploads them to
Fire Escape's BBS Directory HQ BBS where you can also download them.
These are helpful if you have DOS versions of Telix, Telemate or QModem
and would like a current dialing directory with all the BBSes from the
Fire Escape BBS Directory already entered.


12. How did Fire Escape get her alias/handle? What does it mean?

Here is the story straight from the horse's mouth:

     "Back in 1987, after one of my quiet times with the Lord, I was
convicted of the fact that I needed to share my faith with others more
openly. I tried to make up excuses (I'm a housewife, I don't know anybody,
I'm shy around strangers, I wouldn't know how to share it..).. and in
response, the Lord said (to my spirit), "Just agree to try and I'll make
the way for you." So I did.

Several months went by and I had begun to think that God had forgotten His
promise. But then my husband (completely in the dark about this deal)
brought home a modem from his work. I asked him about it and he said that
in addition to wanting to call work from home, he felt that I might be
needing it too. I thought this was a strange thing for him to say since I
had never shown any interest in computers before. Then a few weeks later,
he decided to drag out an old dumb terminal and he set it up, mentioning to
me that I could talk with people though it. I began to get real nervous.

  I decided to pray about these new developments and asked the Lord if this
was His doing. When I didn't get a definite leading, I decided to test Him.
I proposed to the Lord that if this BBS thing was the way He was opening for
me, then he needed to give me a clear sign. I thought this would give me a
nice neat way out because I didn't expect an answer.

  The next week, my husband said that I should get a handle if I wanted to
BBS, and I thought, "Aha! If the Lord wants me to do this then He can name
me Himself."  I knew this would have to be the sign. I waited several weeks
for bells or lights or something spectacular (like Elijah looked for the Lord
in the Earthquake and fire), but I didn't find anything. Then one evening
while I was reading in the den, I read the words "fire escape" in a magazine,
I felt that still small voice say, "that's YOU". I was so surprised by the
whole experience I jumped up from my chair and said to my husband, "God just
gave me my alias". It was like picking up an unfamiliar book and opening it
to see your own name written there unexpectedly.

  Yes, I know this is a very "subjective experience". It was very real to me,
and I sincerely believe it. After this event, I grudgingly began bbsing and
when I was asked the first time exactly what my name was suppose to mean, I
sat still and thought, "oh great, now what am I suppose to tell them!?" And
to my surprise, as I began to type, the words came to me from somewhere else,
and this was what they said.

   The "Fire" represents the judgment of God, which we have all brought
upon ourselves through willful disobedience and sin. We have all fallen short
of the perfection of our Creator and this sin has separated us all from
friendship with Him. If we die unreconciled, then we will remain God's
enemies forever. Nothing we can DO will ever reconcile us to God. We need
God's grace to intercede for us in order to become His children.

  The "Escape" represents the undeserved mercy and justice of God, through
the death and resurrection of Jesus (God the Son). Because we are deeply
loved by a righteous and holy God, the price for our disobedience has been
paid for us by God (in His Son Jesus). We may "Escape" the "Fire" of
God's condemnation by repenting of our sins and trusting in God's sacrifice
on our behalf. God became one of us (by sending His Son Jesus), lived a
sinless life for us, suffered and died of His own volition in our place, and
then rose from the dead for our salvation. If we accept this and submit
ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus the Messiah, then we will be forgiven and
made spiritually new, possessing everlasting life. Reconciliation with God
is the greatest "FIRE ESCAPE" there is.

   So I came to realize that the Lord had fully kept His promise in making
a way for me to share my faith by giving me a name which represents the
very faith I possess. Jesus is more than a "Fire Escape" to me though,
He is also my Master and my best friend: the source of my peace and
happiness. If you find this topic of interest, feel free to write or E-Mail
me about it."


13. So Fire Escape's a Christian? Is she a Bible-Thumping Jesus Freak!?

   Yes and No. Yes, Fire Escape is a "Jesus Freak" in the sense that Jesus
is the most important person in her life. She loves God and tries to live a
life that makes Him proud of her as a child of His. No, she's not a
"Bible-Thumper" in the negative sense of one who can't say anything that
isn't found in a Scofield Reference Bible. The Bible is important to her and
she does believe it's God's inspired word. She tries to base her life on what
it teaches and reveals about God and if you ask her opinion on something, it
will most likely be based on whatever the Bible teaches on that topic.
However, Fire Escape will not hit you on the head with her Bible, nor will
she cram anything it says down your throat. Does this mean that she thinks
other spiritual beliefs (other than biblical Christianity) are valid paths
to spiritual freedom? NO. It only means that she feels each person has the
right to reject faith in Jesus. Just because she doesn't "bible-thump" you
does not mean she agrees with your spiritual beliefs or non-beliefs. Fire
Escape tries to treat people of all faiths with the respect that she would
like extended to herself. She welcomes any discussion of God and would like
to invite anyone with a similar interest to call her BBS and discuss it
with her. The number again is 741-0341. People of all religions are welcome.


14. It's been said that Fire Escape has a mohawk?!? What does she look like?

   YES. Contrary to popular stereotypes, not all Christians wear polyester
sportswear and arrange their hair according to some 11th commandment. Fire
Escape has had a mohawk for 10 years and is not likely to lose it anytime
soon. And CONTRARY to rumor, her Mohawk is NOT a funny color, it's black.
She doesn't shave the sides of her head for any religious reasons either.
Fire Escape does not sit in airports and play the tamborine. Fire Escape is
also NOT a "punk". She just happens to like this "style" of hair and it has
been a great "icebreaker" for her. And by the way, Mohawks ACTUALLY DO look
good on women too. ==={;-P

   Another rumor floating about has Fire Escape as a fat gay man. This one
was a great source of amusement to Fire Escape's husband who can atest to
the fact that Fire Escape is very straight and very much a woman.

   For the record, Fire Escape is a 5'1" woman in her early 30's with short
black hair worn in a mohawk with a long tail in the back. The sides of her
head are sheared down to a fuzz. She wears glasses and is well armed.
Fire Escape takes her self defense seriously.

    Hope these answers have sufficiently satisfied your curiosity. If they
have only made it worse, don't be shy, E-mail Fire Escape, she doesn't bite,
HONEST! Send all questions or comments to Fire Escape c/o Fire Escape's BBS
Directory HeadQuarters [phone].

                                          The original, one and only,
                                                   FIRE ESCAPE

*****************************************************************************
This file may be freely circulated and uploaded to all Bulletin Boards as
long as it is UN-ALTERED and uploaded in it's ENTIRETY! Please direct all
feedback concerning this file to Fire Escape c/o Fire Escape's BBS Directory
HQ at 314-741-0341.