The F I D O N E W S Volume 24, Number 38 17 Sep 2007 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | |The newsletter of the | | | | | FidoNet community. | | Netmail attach to (POTS): | | | | | Editor @ 2:2/2 (+46-31-960447) | | | ____________| | | | | / __ | Netmail attach to (BinkP): | | | / / \ | Editor @ 2:203/0 | | | WOOF! ( /|oo \ | | | \_______\(_| /_) | Email attach to: | | _ @/_ \ _ | bfelten @ telia dot com | | | | \ \\ | | | | (*) | \ ))| | | |__U__| / \// | Editor: Bj”rn Felten | | ______ _//|| _\ / | | | / Fido \ (_/(_|(____/ | Newspapers should have no friends. | | (________) (jm) | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Table of Contents 1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1 2. EDITORIAL ................................................ 2 Rejected contributions ................................... 2 3. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 3 Deja vu .................................................. 3 4. ROBERT COUTURE'S FIDONET SOFTWARE LISTING ................ 7 FidoNet Software References .............................. 7 5. SPECIAL INTEREST ......................................... 12 Nodelist Stats ........................................... 12 6. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 14 How to Submit an Article ................................. 14 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 16 FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 1 17 Sep 2007 ================================================================= FOOD FOR THOUGHT ================================================================= In youth we learn, in age we understand. - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 2 17 Sep 2007 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Rejected contributions I've commented on the above subject so many times, I'm starting to get tired of it. But still there are some people out there that claim that they have submitted articles for the Snooze that has been rejected. So, let's first get one thing clear. If the article never reaches the editor it cannot be rejected. That ought to be obvious to each and every one, but strangely enough that doesn't seem to be the case. Then, how does one go about to submit an article for the Snooze? Well, not so long ago there was only one or two alternatives -- either crash send a file attach to the Snooze headquarters or log on to it's BBS and upload the file. This can all be seen in ARTSPEC.DOC, that of course can be downloaded from the Snooze files archive at http://felten.yi.org/fidonews -- still the only complete archive available even if there are lots of them that are almost complete. Later there has been added a lot of other methods that are allowed in order to submit an article. One of them is via email. But anyone who thinks that email is a safe way to send something obviously have never heard about spam and spam-filters, and also not about black- and grey-listings. I personally would never trust email for something important without requesting a confirmation (easily done -- just check the proper box in your client settings). How come then, that a handful of people, year after year, keeps claiming that they sent a Snooze contribution and then starts whining about their contribution never being published -- and yet they never even bothered to send a mail to the editor asking why? And how hard can it be to send a contribution the proper fidonet way -- crash file attach? Maybe even both ways -- or at least send a netmail to inform the editor that he can expect an email attached article -- or vice versa? Have the members of fidonet really become so unsavvy that they no longer even know how to crashmail a file attach? Well, obviously a few actually have, and of course if you are aware of the fact that you don't even know how to handle even the basic fidonet functions, I guess it's easier to blame someone else for one's shortcomings than to simply ask somebody upstreams to help you out. Enough about that already, and now over to the latest conspiracy attempt (to overthrow the present Snooze editor) from the lovely lady Janis. Ward, the floor is yours, you express our reaction to this coup attempt much better than ever I can do. :) ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 3 17 Sep 2007 ================================================================= GENERAL ARTICLES ================================================================= Deja vu By Ward Dossche 2:292/854 "Deja Vu", besides the title of a very good album by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, is an expression coming from the French language, meaning boredom and a feeling of "where have I seen this before?". Well, history repeats itself ... Fidonet repeats itself ... becomes boring. I was under the impression that we had settled in a comfortable peace only to be disturbed by some infantile messages by one Barry Scharnhorst, Bermah Shaeve, Harry Pearatestes, Ahnteep Iraat and other names used by Roy Witt, all of them abuses which are intentionally and knowingly perpetuated with the cooperation of selected individuals and an unwillingness to deal with it. Today another annoying thread surfaced, an ultimatum directed at the Fidonews editor and as all transatlantic winds blow, it comes from the west. The ZC's have been confronted by their Z1-colleague with an alleged furor regarding Fidonews and several non-USA-based sysops having approached ZC1 to intervene up to the point of unilaterally publishing an alternate Fidonews-editor in the zone-1 segment and stripping the current Fidonews-distribution from the file-distribution system said ZC currently operates. With all due respect but I can think of only one sensible way of dealing with such an ultimatum: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and it reads "Utter Nonsense". Our resident drama-queen insists that several complaints are coming from outside the USA. In the ZC's own words "... the people who are complaining the most are _not_ from the U.S.A. ...". That, of course, does not exclude the rest of Z1. So far I haven't seen a single message emanating from any other zone complaining about the current Fidonews editor. And I am forced to revert to the game of numbers again ... this zone still is 85-90% of the listed nodes in the nodelist. If 85-90% has no problem, then it is justified to ask whether there is a problem. Funny how the wording sounds familiar that "At this point, the number of people who have contacted me about this is growing ..." It is very reminding of the period not so far behind us when coincidentally the same ZC used nearly the same vocabularium to force a vote about the IC at that time. Also then "a number of sysops" were FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 4 17 Sep 2007 involved though no-one outside of the small group could be identified. But of course, said ZC did not say the complaints came from zone-2, or zone-3, or zone-4 or zone-5 .... merely "outside the USA" ... naturally, outside the USA there's Canada in zone-1.... So, does Canada want the removal of the current Fidonews editor? It must be because I have experienced at least the people in zones 2, 3, 4 and 5 to display a willingness for open debate and concensus. Commando raids have not taken place in these zones, at least not since Oct.8th 1994. Then there is the second element of the communication which is even more disturbing and even frightening. Using the mail-, in this case filedistribution-, weapon to get one's way is below anything I've ever witnessed in Fidonet. And I saw a lot. Controling the mail, controling the files is something which we have come to expect from governmental bodies such as the Department of Homeland Security and as a consequence I'm really baffled beyond belief that this apparently is possible in nowadays Fidonet. History repeats itself and, oh yes, Fidonet repeats itself too. The mailweapon has already been used, I nearly forgot, during my first bid for the IC-position where Gamey Garcia, ZC4 at that time, was extorted to change his vote ... "... or else!" Today this would be impossible to achieve, but in those days there was no internet and all echomail reached zone-4 via a single very expensive PSTN-connection by classical modem, and that could be controled ... it was. History repeats itself and Fidonet also repeats itself but I do not plan to play along in this Fidonews-editor phallacy. I'm not buying this new story and I'm not co-operating if this was the intent of the intervention. We don't do business here that way. I'm a firm believer in debate and concensus, not in commando-raids and we are not at a point where we have to proceed in that way. I find the accusation of the Fidonews editor's unwillingness to print certain articles quite farfetched and unacceptable. Yet again "several sysops" have complained about this, no names are mentioned and no verifiable proof is presented that indeed articles were delivered and omitted. Nevertheless the pen of Sean Dennis, Steven Horn, Gord Hannah, Janis Kracht and Roger Nelson can easily be recognised ... ah yes, 2 Canadians. So this is a truly international, nay global, movement. Personaly I would not be surprised if bad routing inside z1 to 2:2/2 would be core to this. Addressing mail to 2:2/2 would normally route it via my system being the 2:2/0 and my tracker's logs do not corroborate the claim. The other kind of proof could be a mailer-log of a direct-delivery. That FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 5 17 Sep 2007 is also not presented, as a matter of fact "nothing" is presented. For those interested in reading the ultimatum by Janis Kracht copied in-extenso below, please be aware that the phrasing "growing numbers of sysops" means 7 people ... the 5 mentioned above plus 2 others. In the meantime Roy Witt is allowed by the same 7 people to continue his daily diatribe unharmed. Now why am I not impressed? You see how easy it is BTW to get an article published? And if you don't like what I write, what stops you then to provide content for Fidonews yourself? It's all too easy, it's all too hushed-up, it's all too ... deja vu! "No ir s jugar con mis cojones" Take care, Ward Dossche ****************************************************************** Date: 16 Sep 07 01:58:06 From: Janis Kracht on 1:261/38 < E-Mail/News Gateway | | Program. Meltdown-BBS |UI |http://meltdown-bbs.sourceforge.net/ | | meltdown-bbs.project.petkan | | @spamgourmet.com | | Fido: 2:350/5 | | Meltdown-BBS is an FTN <-> | | Web/PHP/MySQL BBS forum system. MakeNL |U | http://hub2000.darktech.org/makenl | | fidonet.hub2000 [at] gmail [dot] com FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 11 17 Sep 2007 | | Fido: 1:229/2000 | | FidoNet Nodelist Processor +- - - - - - - - - - -+- - -+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ National BBS List |? | http://www.usbbs.org Hispanic FIDO/BBS's |? | http://www.conecta2.org/pucela_bbs/ (in Spanish only) | | (Extensive software & BBS Listings) +- - - - - - - - - - -+- - -+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ File Archives: http://archives.thebbs.org http://www.filegate.net http://sysopscorner.thebbs.org http://www.juge.com http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/ http://garbo.uwasa.fi http://www.simtel.net http://wuarchive.wustl.edu http://www.bbsfiles.com http://hobbes.nmsu.edu Note: most also provide FTP access (use ftp:// instead of http:// above) *=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=* Please send corrections & additions to: Robert Couture, 1:229/2000 E-Mail: rpa4email (at) rogers (dot) com Telnet: runekeep.darktech.org (Leave Feedback as Guest or create an account) Emeritus: Ben Ritchey, Todd Cochrane, Frank Vest, Peter Popovich ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 12 17 Sep 2007 ================================================================= SPECIAL INTEREST ================================================================= Nodelist Stats Input nodelist nodelist.257 size 612.5kb date 2007-09-14 The nodelist has 5067 nodes in it and a total of 6827 non-comment entries including 6 zones 42 regions 309 hosts 334 hubs admin overhead 691 ( 13.64 %) and 633 private nodes 213 nodes down 223 nodes on hold off line overhead 1069 ( 21.10 %) Speed summary: >9600 = 415 ( 8.19 %) 9600 = 3889 ( 76.75 %) (HST = 79 or 2.03 %) (CSP = 0 or 0.00 %) (PEP = 1 or 0.03 %) (MAX = 0 or 0.00 %) (HAY = 1 or 0.03 %) (V32 = 1952 or 50.19 %) (V32B = 97 or 2.49 %) (V34 = 2675 or 68.78 %) (V42 = 2227 or 57.26 %) (V42B = 106 or 2.73 %) 2400 = 34 ( 0.67 %) 1200 = 5 ( 0.10 %) 300 = 724 ( 14.29 %) ISDN = 348 ( 6.87 %) ---------------------------------------------------------- File Req Flag Applicable software Number of systems ---------------------------------------------------------- XA Frontdoor <1.99b 1519 Frontdoor 2.02+ Dutchie 2.90c Binkleyterm >2.1 D'Bridge <1.3 TIMS Xenia -------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 13 17 Sep 2007 XB Binkleyterm 2.0 8 Dutchie 2.90b -------------------------------------- XC Opus 1.1 2 -------------------------------------- XP Seadog 2 -------------------------------------- XR Opus 1.03 25 -------------------------------------- XW Fido >12M 204 Tabby KittenMail -------------------------------------- XX D'Bridge 1.30 1998 Frontdoor 1.99b Intermail 2.01 T-Mail -------------------------------------- None QMM 1309 -------------------------------------- CrashMail capable = 1860 ( 36.71 %) MailOnly nodes = 2842 ( 56.09 %) Listed-only nodes = 423 ( 8.35 %) Other = -58 ( -1.14 %) [Report produced by NETSTATS - A PD pgm] [ Revised by B Felten, 2:203/208] ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 14 17 Sep 2007 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= How to Submit an Article If you wish to submit an article for inclusion in the Fidonews, here are some guidelines, if you send it as an attached file; the preferred method if you want reasonable control over how the published article will appear in the Fidonews: a) Plain ASCII text. If you could type it on your keyboard, it's probably quite OK. No line may be longer than 70 characters. b) Put a title to the article. Put the title in two times. The first time, on the first line, with an * before it. The second time, on the second line, without the * and centered. This will help in the format since the title with the * is removed and used in the index, the second line will become the headline. On the third line, put your name and FidoNet address, present or former. If former, you may want to add some other address where you can be reached for personal comments. c) Deadline for article submission is Sunday, 22:00 UTC. Help the Editor by following the above guides. Below are some subjects and the file extension for the article as set in the configuration file for the making of the Fidonews. Please help by putting the file extension of the correct subject on the file name if known. Ideas for Subject areas: Subject File | Subject File ----------------------------------|---------------------------------- From the *C's *.css | Rebuttals to articles *.reb Fidonet Regional News *.reg | Fidonet Net News *.net Retractions *.rtx | General Fidonet Articles *.art Guest Editorial *.gue | Fidonet Current Events *.cur Fidonet Interviews *.inv | Fidonet Software Reviews *.rev Fidonet Web Page Reviews *.web | Fidonet Notices *.not Getting Fidonet Technical *.ftc | Question Of The Week *.que Humor in a Fido Vein *.hfv | Comix in ASCII *.cmx Fidonet's Int. Kitchen *.rec | Poet's Corner *.poe Clean Humor & Jokes *.jok | Other Stuff *.oth Fidonet Classified Ads *.ads | Corrections *.cor Best of Fidonet *.bof | Letters to the Editor *.let If you don't know or are not sure, send the article anyway. Put a .TXT on it and I'll try to figure out where it should be in the Fidonews. If you follow these simple guidelines, there should be little problem in getting your article published. If your submission is too far out of specs for the Fidonews, it will be returned to you and/or a message sent informing you of the problem. This DOES NOT mean that your article is not accepted. It means that there is something in it that I can not fix and I need your help on it. FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 15 17 Sep 2007 Send articles via e-mail or netmail, file attach or message to: Bj”rn Felten Fidonet 2:2/2 E-Mail bfelten @ telia dot com Skype file bfelten IMPORTANT! If you send the article via e-mail, make sure you put the word "fidonews" somewhere in the subject line! That way it will always pass the spam filter, ending up in the proper folder. Please include a message, telling me that you have sent an article. That way I will know to look for it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 24-38 Page 16 17 Sep 2007 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- FIDONEWS STAFF - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | Editor: Bj”rn Felten, 2:2/2 | | Columnists: Frank Vest - Frank's Column | | Thom LaCosta - Fidonet Related Websites | | Robert Couture - Fidonet Software Listing | | Daryl Stout - Telnet BBS Guide | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - EDITORS EMERITI - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince | | Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, | | Christopher Baker, Zorch Frezberg, Henk Wolsink, | | Doug Meyers, Warren D. Bonner, Frank L. Vest | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + Fidonews is published weekly by and for the members of Fidonet. There is no copyright attached to Fidonews, though authors retain rights to their contributed articles. Opinions expressed by the authors is strictly their own. Noncommercial duplication and distribution within Fidonet is encouraged. Authors are encouraged to send their articles in ASCII text to the Editor at one of the addresses above. The weekly edition of Fidonews is distributed through the file area FIDONEWS, and is published as echomail in the echo FIDONEWS. These sources are normally available through your Network Coordinator. The current and past issues are also available from the following sources: + -- -- -- -- -- -- - FIDONEWS AVAILABILITY - -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | File request from 2:2/2: | | current issue FIDONEWS | | back issue, volume v, issue ii FNEWSvii.ZIP | | | | On the web: | | http://felten.yi.org/fidonews | | http://www.fidonet.ca/fidonews | | | | The Snooze *and* the FIDONEWS echo in your newsreader: | | news://felten.yi.org/FIDONEWS | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + -----------------------------------------------------------------