> It is a shame that the entire world is now wrapped into the single user   
   > mindset of the internet.  If you really want to see what social   
   > networking is then they really should see ftn style networks.   
       
   I was just thinking last night about how Fidonet was inherently social,   
   because so much of it was manually managed.  To be added to the nodelist, you   
   had to ask someone.  To setup a link with another sysop, you had to ask.  And   
   that's not to mention that the entire point of Fidonet was to talk to people   
   in the first place.  The internet requires very little communication with   
   other users to get anything out of it, so you find a lot more people who never   
   had to develop any social skills.  That's not to say that there's not still   
   plenty of great people there too though, probably more overall than Fidonet   
   ever had since it's so much larger.  The internet is also a great resource and   
   collection of technology in general.  But I'm quite sure the ratio of crappy   
   people vs good ones skewed dramatically since the BBS days.   
       
   Anyhow, the thought crossed my mind because I got to thinking on how one might   
   make Fidonet more appealing to more people, by automating aspects such as   
   getting a node number and things like that (assuming it's not already fairly   
   automated, I have no idea these days). And while it could be done easily, as   
   I've automated websites before myself to remove any need for constant admin   
   interaction for frequently used aspects, you lose that personal connection   
   with the users and it just becomes more of a faceless service, like so many   
   other things on the net as far as the user is concerned.  For some things   
   that's fine, for others it's not.  And in terms of Fidonet, gaining users vs   
   losing the personal touch is a hard trade-off to decide on.  Luckily it's not   
   up to me to decide!   
       
       
   > I'm actually ikn the process of setting up my old Amiga BBS running   
   > AmiExpress.  I've almost got the telnet hack working so that people can   
   > telnet into it.  I'm just wondering how many people will actually care.   
       
   I'm betting not too many, unfortunately.  You'll probably get a few who use it   
   out of novelty though.  And for those people alone, it might be worth it,   
   because they'll get some nostalgia out of it.   
       
   I wrote some software to solely run door games via telnet, most of the Seth   
   Able ones, and got some interest from a handful of friends for a few weeks.   
   Some lost interest faster than others.  Occasionally someone will ask me to   
   start that machine up, but I usually leave it off these days.  But just the   
   fact that some of these people were folks who never got to play these games   
   back in the day makes it worthwhile in my opinion.   
      
   --- D'Bridge 2.98   
    * Origin: FyBBS (1:229/500)