On 17 Sep 2022 at 03:58p, apam pondered and said...
Hey there :)
I'm going to jump about in my reply a bit.
As for getting rid of Talisman / Enigma echos, or rolling them into general BBS support - I'm not a fan of that, because I don't want to wade through a bunch of other bbs support questions, and then miss one and
have people think I don't care. Plus Bryan and I are here. It also seems to me, that they are obvious echos for people to not link to - someone running Renegade might not care what happens in Talisman echo.
I agree. Unless either you or Bryan are keen to see those echos removed I'm more than happy for them to remain. I appreciate that you guys both post and support them with updates and offering help to folks who are using the software you both write.
I'm also of the same view to retain the Mystic echo despite g00r00 not being active in it.
When fsxnet started, it had one echo, fsx_gen (I'm sure you remember, but others might not) and there was an issue where new people often thought fsxnet was technical related and non technical posts weren't welcome.
By having a gardening echo, people can be sure gardening chat is welcome, and while most of the time they might be out in the sunshine not posting messages, it's there if they want to. If gardening was relegated to general, it may lead to people thinking well gardening chat isn't really wanted - even though general covers it.
I agree that having one general echo became to much and that you'll recall it was mostly chat about Mystic that lead to FSX_MYS being created first to split that banter off to it's own echo etc. I don't recall the tech vs non-tech issue that much for FSX_GEN but feel folks largely could discuss most things in GEN simply because in those early days that's about all there was :)
Re your Gardening comments, not I'm not thinking of moving such a topic back to FSX_GEN but am thinking of grouping several topics that currently have some chatter in specific echos down into one more broader encompassing echo.
Also, keep in mind, that pruning echos means everyone has to update their systems (even if it's just setting those areas as readonly or archived) though adding echos is much easier, because you can ignore them and link them when you like.
Yes I agree it would require work for all but if it's good enough to add some it should be fine also to shutter some or merge stuff down.
My thinking is that echos such as DIY, arts, gardening, transport, food, could merge into a lifestyle echomail area that also covered travel, health and fitness, pets, road trips, travel for example.
So a new echo is created and several are closed. But in doing this I propose to forward all messages from the to be shuttered echos into the newly created one as a starting point so that overall no previously posted content is lost.
What about having some notice in the info packet instead, like General (High Traffic) Gardening (Low Traffic)
Cryptography (Very Low Traffic)
Yes I could do that, and sorta have already if you look at the Fidonet elist monthly reports... but I take you're point on this... I also think the stats the NET 1 HUB has been posting each week (up until the last week or so when I shut it down for now) were also sharing such information as folks could see a weekly summary in the echomail stats area of what traffic and subjects etc were being created in each fsxNet echo over the last 7 days...
If people don't want to see echos with few messages, they can unlink from them.
true, but one thing I'm not overly happy about when those 11 new echos were created in May 2021 was that depending on which HUB you were connected to you may or may not have been connected to the echos when they were set up.
There's differing points of view on this one, one one hand it's 'let nodes areafix the new echos and link to them if they want' on the other hand I'm more of the view to 'link all nodes to the new echos and let them areafix them off if they don't want them'
I favour the latter approach as a number of systems are running on auto and sysops may not be active in keeping up with adding new echos so by linking at a HUB at least (for most systems that are set to auto create new bases) the new echos become discoverable by users of a BBS when they are created.
I should also acknowledge that the same sysop inaction can/will also cause issues when at a network level we opt to remove an echo only for someone to post to it again from a BBS whose sysop has not removed or disabled the users access to the now defunct echo(s)... this means (I guess) that at a HUB level we need to try and find ways to ensure stuff posted to a retired fsxNet echomail area is not passed along to other nodes. That's something I'm not sure how best to deal to at the moment but I guess it comes down to write privs for nodes at the HUBs
Why?
In May 2021 it was an experiment to create more echomail areas on a bunch of broad topics to see if there was strong appeal and usage of such echos. Running the numbers over the last 15 months here's what I've seen at NET 1
FSX_DIY 38
FSX_ARTS 75
FSX_SPORTS 88
FSX_GARDENING 90
FSX_FOOD 108
FSX_SPACE 114
FSX_GAMING 308
FSX_TRANSPORT 326
FSX_VIDEO 388
FSX_MUSIC 614
FSX_RETRO 1441
Now by comparison the FSX_MYS echo generated 1582 posts over the same 481 day period, while FSX_GEN generated 11,498 posts over the same time period.
Looking to the above list I'm hard pressed to say for the 15+ months these echos have been rolling along that many have generated popularity such that the numbers of posts have been upwards of 1000 during that time.
Arguably the retro echomail area is a winner and the music echo has done well also. Some others are circa 300 posts the rest are well down the pegging order.
I ran some analysis across all the newer echos. In a number of cases the numbers of subjects covered during the 15 months were very low and for some echos it was I that posted the most messages over that time frame (as I sought to generate some chatter on things).
So you'll understand when I look at some echos and see myself as the guy who posted the most things in an echo that say had only 100 odd messages in total it's hard to not to look at it and say 'was this that popular'?
You'll know that I've always been keen to ensure an echomail area enjoys a reasonable amount of traffic through it and have thought trying to 'keep things simple' and not end up having more echomail areas with less chat in them each, was a position best avoided.
I'm thinking in the interests of keeping things experimental it would be worth revisiting the numbers of echomail areas and (whist retaining the old content from all those that may be shuttered) merging some down into a fewer number in the hopes of more chatter in those that remain.
For the likes of the sports, music, video/tv, gaming echos I'm thinking they could be merged into a entertainment echo to cover those subjects along with things like books, concerts, live theater etc.
Selfishly (and because I'm ZC) I am thinking of retaining the space, crypto echos as they are, crypto I do want to keep for future chat about encryption more so than bitcon banter etc.. and space, I like as a specific subject (much like ham radio) and feel with NASA Artimis and SpaceX stuff happening there's more future scope to discuss those happenings with interested folks.
The retro echo should remain, that's a given as it's done well over the 15+ months.
So that's a rather long reply for you (and all who read it) as to where my thinking is at at the moment :)
Happy to be further challenged on things but I do feel things need to be changed, by how much I'm probably 70%+ positive towards the thinking I've outlined above.
Best, Paul
Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)