Hello Bj”rn,   
      
   On Monday February 03 2014 17:24, you wrote to me:   
      
    MvdV>> Allow8bit 1   
      
    BF>    I know. But I don't understand why we even need this.   
      
   Because the Fidonet community as a whole isn't ready for it yet. Fortunately   
   those working on the MakeNlNg project were. So be glad that at least it has   
   been made possible.   
      
   Some call this process diplomacy. Go in small steps.  Don't try to break down   
   the wall in one day. That won't work. First make a door but do not open it   
   yet. Then make a peep hole to raise the other side's curiosity. Then give them   
   a key so they can open the door. Small steps...   
      
    BF> As I said, I completely disabled (made a conditional zero jump) that   
    BF> check in my 1999 patch.   
      
   Eh.. if you completely disabled it, would that not be an UNconritional jump?   
      
    BF> Who would even want to *not* allow it?   
      
   Is that a rethorical question?   
      
    MvdV>> There is just one little problem. Just as the ASCII only   
    MvdV>> restriction is not fair to the world outside the part where the   
    MvdV>> native US English speakers live, it would not be fair to   
    MvdV>> restrict it to those that can spell their name or city properly   
    MvdV>> in CP437, CP850 or LATIN-1.   
      
    BF>    Who cares?   
      
   I for one.   
      
    BF>    The nodelist is nothing but a database that is supposed to be read   
    BF> and interpreted by programs. Not to be read by low-ASCII brainwashed   
    BF> persons.   
      
   So why don't we completely do away with the fields for the system name, the   
   sysop name and the location. They serve no purpose whatsoever in regarding   
   mailers making a connection.   
      
    MvdV>> I we allow more than ASCII, we should allow ALL Fidonet   
    MvdV>> participants to have their name properly spelled. Unfortunately   
    MvdV>> there is no single 8 bit character set that can fulfil this   
    MvdV>> requirement, and having a different character encoding scheme   
    MvdV>> for each line is ehh.. unpractical.   
      
    BF>    Nah, lets do it!   
      
   Let us do what?   
      
    BF> Nobody think that the nodelist will grow bigger any more. So what if   
    BF> it suddenly becomes twice the size (as with every character 16-bit).   
    BF> Not that it will ever happen, but still, so what?   
      
   Indeed so what?   
      
   So I suggest you make the next step. Instead of using an 8 bit character set   
   to encode the ” for your name in the nodelist, encode it in UTF-8. This will   
   show as TWO question marks in the Z2 nodelist.   
      
   Cheers, Michiel   
      
   --- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20110320   
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