Would appreciate some feedback whether it be public or private by Friday, 17 March 2023, 20:00 UTC.


2023 FTSC standing member election, call for votes
==================================================

Voting for FTSC standing members commences on Sunday, 26 February,
2023, 20:00 UTC.

All RCs are entitled to vote. Each voter may cast one "yes"
or one "no" vote for each candidate. Voters need not vote for all can-
didates, a non vote will be regarded as "abstain" for that candidate. Candidates must receive more "yes" than "no" votes to be elected.

Although not required, voters are encouraged to consult their
constituency before casting their votes. Debate with the candidates
is also encouraged. No need to hurry.

Voting ends on Sunday, 19 March 2023, 20:00 UTC.

The status of RC's will be determined by nodelist.027 of this year
by the list as issued by the ZC in the zone where they reside.

This is the list of nominees.

Candidate Node nr. Nmntd by Accepted

Andrew Leary 1:320/219 RC13 Yes
Carol Shenkenberger 1:275/100 RC13 Yes
Nick Andre 1:229/426 RC33 Yes
Deon George 3:633/509 ZCC-NC Yes
Maurice Kinal 1:153/7001 RC13 Yes
mark lewis 1:3634/12 RC13 Yes

Voters are requested to copy and paste the form below, mark a
cross for each candidate in the "yes" or the "no" column for all
candidates they wish to cast a vote for and post it in FTSC_PUBLIC
addressed to "Election Coordinator with a subject of "Vote".


Once again, voters need not vote for all candidates.


----------------------------------------------
| Name | Node nr | Yes| No |
|----------------------|-------------|----|----|
| Andrew Leary | 1:320/219 | | |
| Carol Shenkenberger | 1:275/100 | | |
| Nick Andre | 1:229/426 | | |
| Deon George | 3:633/509 | | |
| Maurice Kinal | 1:153/7001 | | |
| mark lewis | 1:3634/12 | | |
----------------------------------------------

Regards,

Terry

... Platinum Xpress & Wildcat!..... Nice!!!!
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: The File Bank BBS! https://tfb-bbs.org (3:712/1321)

Re: 2023 FTSC standing member election, call for votes
By: Terry Roati to ALL on Sun Feb 26 2023 10:17 pm

Howdy,

Would appreciate some feedback whether it be public or private by Friday, 17 March 2023, 20:00 UTC.

I wont make any comment, since Ive been nominated, other than this.

This hobby is something that I think many want to keep alive, and many want to progress it, while retaining the history that inspired them to a) get back into it, or b) that they used to use back in the day.

I think there are realivately few new BBS nodes that werent nodes "back in the day" (which IMHO is representative of a problem).

What is missing is a group of leaders that:

a) Want to inspire folks to use this technology,
b) Want to encourage new innovation and help with their expertise, knowledge and history,
c) Want to keep this hobby going,
d) Represent an admirable fido citizen for their efforts,

So I would suggest your cast your comment (and ultimately this regions vote) with that in mind, and determine if those users nominated will encourage that activity.


...ëîåï
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (3:633/509)

Hello deon!

02 Mar 23 11:58, you wrote to Terry Roati:

b) Want to encourage new innovation and help with their expertise, knowledge and history,

There really hasn't been anything new in a long time.... And the problem is so many systems are using older software, so they would be locked out of anything new.

d) Represent an admirable fido citizen for their efforts,

People comming back or new people seam to get jumped on from a great height... They then go silent or shutup shop.

Here's a list of old nodes from when I became NC in 2007... some names should jog the memory cell's...
(one of them still thinks his apart if the network, but any contact is just ignored and no response is ever received).


;,104,Dark_Crystal_BBS,Kilsyth,Paul_Sanders,-Unpublished-,300,CM,ITN,IVM,IBN:dcbbs.sytes.net
;,260,Tardis_IP,North_Balwyn,Malcolm_Miles,-Unpublished-,300,CM,XA,IBN:fido.tardis.net,IFC,ITN:60177
;,209,Silicon_Central,Lower_Templestowe,Andrew_Doran,61-3-9852-0404,9600,V32b,VFC,V42b,CM,XX
;,284,Teletechnique_BBS,Rowville,Ger_Vloothuis,61-3-9778-5372,9600,V34,CM,XA,IBN:ttq.darktech.org,IEM:irex@ttq.darktech.org
;,285,PBN_Mail,Scoresby,Ger_Vloothuis,61-3-9763-5631,9600,V32b,CM,XA,IBN:net633.darktech.org,IEM:irex@pbn.com.au
;,300,Flight_Of_Fancy,Croydon,Andy_McArdle,61-3-9733-4260,9600,V34,V42b,MNP,MO,CM,XX
;,383,The_Dead_Letter_Department,Carnegie,Craig_Hutchison,61-3-9571-7194,9600,V34,V42b,MNP,CM,XX
;,400,The_Shack_BBS,Melbourne,William_Eggers,-Unpublished-,300,CM,IBN:theshackbbs.pepe.net.au
;,402,ZZap_BBS,Malvern_Vic,Simon_Phillips,-Unpublished-,300,MO ;,404,Just_Hanging_Out,Tacloban_Philippines,Bill_Gough,-Unpublished-,300,MO ;,414,Wicked_Garden_BBS,Burnside_Vic,Hung_Tran,-Unpublished-,300,CM,IBN:wgbbs.ddns.net
;,436,The_Purple_Cow,Melbourne,Andre_van_Eyssen,-Unpublished-,300,CM,ITN,IVM,IBN:bbs.purplecow.org
;,812,Camelot_Swamp,Hawthorndene_Sth_Aust,Arthur_Marsh,61-8-8370-2133,9600,V34,V32b,V32T,V42b,CM,XA





Stephen


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220409
* Origin: Dragon's Lair BBS, Telnet: dragon.vk3heg.net Prt: 6800 (3:633/280)

Hi Deon,

It is great to have someone from Zone 3 as a member of the FTSC.

My only complaint with the FTSC is there should be an annual report of what
has been done for the year even if it is little or nothing.

I appreciate that the FTSC function is only to document.

This hobby is something that I think many want to keep alive, and many
want to progress it, while retaining the history that inspired them to
a) get back into it, or b) that they used to use back in the day.

It has always been a hobby with unfornately a few folks on a power trip but they can be ignored.

I think there are realivately few new BBS nodes that werent nodes "back
in the day" (which IMHO is representative of a problem).

There are very few new Sysops for a number of reasons but the main one is younger people don't know what FTN is or have the inclination to use it. My sons are a classic example, they would prefer online gaming.

What is missing is a group of leaders that:

a) Want to inspire folks to use this technology,
b) Want to encourage new innovation and help with their expertise, knowledge and history,
c) Want to keep this hobby going,
d) Represent an admirable fido citizen for their efforts,

The weakness is quite a few of the NCs in Zone 1 are not approachable or helpful which is why I have quite a few Zone 1 sysops as downlinks.

The other issue is now there is no money for developers there is a definite slowdown of development and innovation.

So I would suggest your cast your comment (and ultimately this regions vote) with that in mind, and determine if those users nominated will encourage that activity.

Unless there is a valid reason to vote NO for a candidate I will be voting YES for them as I appreciate the candidates giving time and effort to the FTSC.

Terry

... Platinum Xpress & Wildcat!..... Nice!!!!
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: The File Bank BBS! https://tfb-bbs.org (3:712/1321)

Re: 2023 FTSC standing member election, call for votes
By: Stephen Walsh to deon on Sat Mar 04 2023 01:24 pm

Howdy,

There really hasn't been anything new in a long time.... And the problem is so many systems are using older software, so they would be locked out of anything new.

Actually, this I dont agree with.

I created something new - not saying its great, nor do I want to boast about it, but I've designed it to work with the "old" (for nostalgia) - and it does, and to be a new way of being the infrastructure for this hobby.

https://clrghouz.bbs.dege.au

(Funny thing, it doesnt work with D'Bridge, but I know what that problem is and might get to fix it one day - but it works with the other EMSI mailers, I've thrown at it...)

And then there is Enimga written in javascript - it interacts with binkp quite happily, the work that APAMs done, etc.

People comming back or new people seam to get jumped on from a great height... They then go silent or shutup shop.

Yeah, this is the problem. Too many are shot down (I've seen a couple in my short time back here).


...ëîåï
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (3:633/509)

Re: RE: 2023 FTSC standing member election, call for votes
By: Terry Roati to Deon on Sat Mar 04 2023 07:10 pm

Hey Terry,

My only complaint with the FTSC is there should be an annual report of what has been done for the year even if it is little or nothing.

I appreciate that the FTSC function is only to document.

So I dont think much is done. My first tenure I dont recall anything being done.

Not much to document, when nothing gets created right?

There are very few new Sysops for a number of reasons but the main one is younger people don't know what FTN is or have the inclination to use it. My sons are a classic example, they would prefer online gaming.

Yeah, I understand that. I've tried to get my son involved a little too - and its not minecraft... :(


...ëîåï
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (3:633/509)

On 2023-03-04 13:24:34, Stephen Walsh (3:633/280) wrote to deon:

b) Want to encourage new innovation and help with their expertise,
knowledge and history,

There really hasn't been anything new in a long time.... And the problem is so many systems are using older software, so they would be locked out of anything new.

This is really a FidoNet problem, or more widely a BBSing-scene-in-general problem, not an FTSC problem.

The FTSC is really there just to document new standards, has never really existed to "promote" FidoNet tech to the outside world, nor even within it. Its scope is very limited compared to the imaginary power a handful of vocal people (especially in the past) seem to think it had.

Realistically compared to modern Internet standards everything Fido is extremely primitive, though to retrocomputing BBSers that's part of the charm, so I don't really blame anyone for using older software. For an even smaller number of folks a lot of the fun is to get a BBS (or outside the BBS scene, a HTTP server) working on the oldest piece of hardware they have, which is typically something from the 1980s or early '90s. I get that, though the fun can quickly wear off when the old hardware finally dies and you can't easily get replacement parts!

Naturally old hardware tends to limit your choices of software, but compared to Fido at its peak in around 1995 there's not much new software around. There just isn't the demand for it. Also keep in mind, at Fido's peak a lot of BBS software was still commercial. I recall Ezycom and RemoteAccess were very popular but neither were free. IIRC even the FOSSIL driver (BNU or X00) was closed source commercial software. Obviously not everyone paid, but the point is that there was money to be made by the developers at the time, compared to now when a lot of the best software is free and open source, a reflection of software in general.

The messagebase reader I and many others still use (GoldED) doesn't properly support UTF-8 and likely never will. It originated in the DOS/OS2 world where UTF-8 output didn't exist, so its internal code makes assumptions (which were valid at the time) about the charsets it can use and the limitations of the output device. The GoldED code would need to be heavily modified for UTF-8 support, but at some point it would be easier to do a ground-up rewrite in Python. That's still a huge amount of work though, and the number of people likely to want to use it is incredibly small.

At its peak FidoNet had around 40,000 nodes, so if we do an extremely rough calculation and assume each of those nodes had 100 regular users, that's only 4 million people who ever used a FidoNet BBS, many of whom would be oblivious or just disinterested in the Fido part of it.

I don't think there's a BBS scene, only a retro BBS scene.

Despite that I think it's incredible so much old DOS software was ported to Linux (and by extension BSD and MacOS, as the differences for ports are typically fairly minor) over the years. There was even a relatively successful Linux port of Maximus BBS made years ago. Oddly the guy who did 99% of the work disappeared from Fido not long after he'd finished with it so I'm not even sure he used his own creation "in anger".

It's also interesting (and a bit unfortunate) almost every major developer of FidoNet or BBS software at its peak left the scene only a few years later, and more importantly never returned. Many of whom were incredibly talented and prolific coders.

--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20230221
* Origin: Blizzard of Ozz, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (3:633/267)

Hi Deon,

On Mar 04, 2023 11:47pm, Deon wrote to Terry Roati:

So I dont think much is done. My first tenure I dont recall anything
being done.

I personally don't have an issue with that, regularly explaining what the function of the FTSC is might and a annual report couldn't hurt either.

Not much to document, when nothing gets created right?

No argument there :)

Yeah, I understand that. I've tried to get my son involved a little too
- and its not minecraft... :(

Maybe new software might help, unfortunately that's not happening.

Again, my personal thanks for volunteering.

Terry

... Platinum Xpress & Wildcat!..... Nice!!!!
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: The File Bank BBS! https://tfb-bbs.org (3:712/1321)

Hi Andrew,

Yep I agree, there is a clear misunderstanding on what the function of the
FTSC is.

It's also interesting (and a bit unfortunate) almost every major
developer of FidoNet or BBS software at its peak left the scene only a
few years later, and more importantly never returned. Many of whom were incredibly talented and prolific coders.

I beleive the reason is MONEY, there was little incentive for the developers for them to continue plus many then moved on to other projects outside of FTN
/ BBS development. As you know the personal attacks from loud few didn't help either.

My personal thanks to your contributions to the FTSC and my apologies for not realizing you were also from Zone 3.

Terry

... Platinum Xpress & Wildcat!..... Nice!!!!
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: The File Bank BBS! https://tfb-bbs.org (3:712/1321)

Hello deon!

04 Mar 23 23:55, you wrote to me:

There really hasn't been anything new in a long time.... And the
problem is so many systems are using older software, so they would
be locked out of anything new.

Actually, this I dont agree with.

I created something new - not saying its great, nor do I want to boast

[...]

https://clrghouz.bbs.dege.au

Yes I've seen what you've done. How many systems are using it though?

And then there is Enimga written in javascript - it interacts with
binkp quite happily, the work that APAMs done, etc.

They are just bbs systems using already existing standards. Nothing new except the interface.

I'm using Talisman on my Amiga 3000 Linux install. Even hpt/binkd work on that machine.

People comming back or new people seam to get jumped on from a
great height... They then go silent or shutup shop.

Yeah, this is the problem. Too many are shot down (I've seen a couple
in my short time back here).

Yes and some of the regular's forget that they had to start fresh at some stage. But they seam to have forgotten that.



Stephen


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220409
* Origin: Dragon's Lair BBS, Telnet: dragon.vk3heg.net Prt: 6800 (3:633/280)

Hello andrew!

05 Mar 23 03:46, you wrote to me:

b) Want to encourage new innovation and help with their
expertise, knowledge and history,

There really hasn't been anything new in a long time.... And the
problem is so many systems are using older software, so they
would be locked out of anything new.

This is really a FidoNet problem, or more widely a
BBSing-scene-in-general problem, not an FTSC problem.

It's not just bbs/fido, also ham radio is loosing people to. There have been new mode's of operation came about over
the recent years though.

Its scope is very limited compared to the imaginary power a handful of vocal people (especially in the past) seem to think it had.

Some of them think they still weild that power.

For an even smaller number of folks a lot of the fun is to get a BBS
(or outside the BBS scene, a HTTP server) working on the oldest piece
of hardware they have, which is typically something from the 1980s or early '90s. I get that, though the fun can quickly wear off when the
old hardware finally dies and you can't easily get replacement parts!

I can atest to that. I own four Amiga computers (A600, A1200, A4000, A3000) and only the A1200 is still running on
it's original PSU. Btw: I also have linux installed on the A3000... Takes 10-15 minutes to boot to the login prompt.
#-(

I recall Ezycom and RemoteAccess were very popular but neither were
free.

I ran Ezycom back in the day, with two nodes. I did purchase a license though after testing for a period.

At its peak FidoNet had around 40,000 nodes, so if we do an extremely rough calculation and assume each of those nodes had 100 regular
users, that's only 4 million people who ever used a FidoNet BBS, many
of whom would be oblivious or just disinterested in the Fido part of
it.

Access to the internet came roaring into town and everyone left for it, never to be seen again.

There was even a relatively successful Linux port of Maximus BBS made years ago. Oddly the guy who did 99% of the work disappeared from Fido
not long after he'd finished with it so I'm not even sure he used his
own creation "in anger".

He probably got fed up with being jumped on from a great height (Yes I new of the port)...

I myself have/had a little project that I'd been working on, someone offered to help, give feedback, support, idea's
etc... Three weeks later he lobes a bomb into the project and totaly destroys things, then a week after that starts
his own effort basing things on my project. My last beta effort of adding support for installing/working with UEFI
systems will most likly be the last release I do.

It's also interesting (and a bit unfortunate) almost every major
developer of FidoNet or BBS software at its peak left the scene only a
few years later, and more importantly never returned. Many of whom
were incredibly talented and prolific coders.

They wanted to get some $$$ for all the effort, and the only way was a paid job. The auther of the lzh compression
system comes to mind, as he now works for Microsoft.



Stephen


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220409
* Origin: Dragon's Lair BBS, Telnet: dragon.vk3heg.net Prt: 6800 (3:633/280)