iXHS Issue: 17 About: BBS By : Shot Gun Begin: general - everyone into informatics and sharing information that i've conversed with agree that the bbs scene is dead or dying at a rapid and painful rate. the original bbs idea was started by the military - like many other electronic/ computerized ideas - to spread information through out the military; and the purpose of bbs' is still the same: to share information. a lot must agree, this ideal has been lost through one terrible bbs to the next. it's not about sharing information anymore. it's about 'flaming', 'trading' warez, playing doorgames, and leeching as many files as possible. the concept has been lost through all these things; and that's what is taking down the scene. what's worse is that the bbs' that are doing this are terrible bbs'. badly configured. many boards i've seen in this acn are mainly default . there was no effort put into these boards. it's like the sysop who runs these boards think that their bbs will be a smash with some stupid name like 'anarchy 'r us' or something along those lines or even stupider a name. it's mainly the renegade boards that i see that are like this. it's hard to differenciate a maximus board because they all look the same, no matter what . anyway, i'll just focus on these renegade boards . the ratio to good boards to bad boards is scary isn't it? there are probably atleast 100+ bbs out there, and maybe about 20 of them are quality boards, some may disagree, others will agree. it seems as though the sysop just unzipped the program, typed 'renegade' and says 'my wicked board is up'. no, i'm sorry it's not. most of these sysops know absolutely nothing about the software they use to run their 'cool bbs'. they depend on others for help and take it for granted that others will help them. renegade is the simplest bbs program out there. those who can't config all or most of it need to get out those documents. those documents maybe novel-length, but you don't read the whole thing, just look up what you need - but some are just too lazy too . asking for help once in a while is okay , but asking for help constantly is pathetic. doorgamers - there are some out there who only call bbs' for this purpose and only this purpose. they really, really annoy me. when i ran an open board about 80% of my users were these. of course, using scare tactics ruiner thought of, some converted to good conversationalists but most ignored the call. 'it's like they think they are doing me a favour by calling' - ruiner. yes, a lot of these doorgame freaks think this. my first ideal was to go this way, to get as many users as possible; now that i know the hell of it all, i do not want to experience it again. many sysops can relate to this, some care and some couldn't care less. okay, there are the doorgamers i don't mind, like the ones who add good conversation to the bases and fill up my hard drive with useful files. those users i don't mind. so, if you think i'm talking about all doorgamers, don't. hell, i play doorgames once in a while. at first, i had almost 20 doorgames, yes, 20. it's not something i'm proud of and now i have 2. 20 doorgames attract doorgame freaks. the reason why is oblivious to my knowing <:P>. so, a lot of bbsers thought my board was another board to waste their lives on playing doorgames. god that pisses me off just thinking about it. now i'm very strict on who i let on and who i kick off . i'd like to have intectual conversation with some whimsicalness on the side, or balanced equally. now, i'm finally getting it. some have complained, all i can say is: it's my bbs, i can do whatever i want, whenever i want. so, if you complain, never call the board back again. i didn't put up my board to have it put down every single day. i don't put up my board to have it screamed at by some moron who wants 'warez'. don't they know where i stand on the issues of warez yet? warez and the k-phat - these guys consider us hp guys 'lamers'. hmm, i wonder. but anyway, i hate most of them and hate what they stand for. they corrupt the scene. they make it sound like all bbsers are alike: if you're a bbser, you pirate. no, i'm sorry , you're wrong. they contaminate the scene with those 128 disk phat games . they have no purpose on the scene. these games are massive in size and who really wants to play them? no one. they are just too big, so what is the real point behind it? games that require a lot more hardware than you have, are useless. i don't see why they have to do this. i guess they have no real 'power'/esteem in the real, live world and have to hide behind some badass name. a lot of them are very unintillgent and dare say that we hp and the rest are stupid. these guys can't even type out a sentence without a spelling or grammar mistake. these guys destroy the essence of what a bbs is and it's use. they are here to annoy us. they are here to put down others to make themselves more powerful; but of course, we all know, a lot of them don't have a very high self-esteem. have you noticed how bad the quality of these warez boards are? these boards are the single-most crappiest boards in existence. some may not care about quality, but i sure as hell do. sure, maybe my board isn't the best configged board in the world, but it sure isn't a crappy board . file leeches - i don't really mind users like these, but i do when i see statistics like: uploads 2 downloads 194 k uploaded 40 k downloaded 22,765 i like to give away leech accounts, but i expect things in return once in a while. of course, that's a given, all sysops want their users to upload files. well, not all - you know who you are. i can't stand a user like this because they are just taking all they can and not even considering how long i took to collect these files. those grubby hands type 'D' followed by a '*.*' and poof, they have all the files in the area they are in, without considering paying me back in messages or files. in closing - there are a few decent boards out there. mainly, the public domain boards are the best ones, in look and quality. a lot of them have thousands upon thousands of files to give, but donm't have lively message bases. sure, a lot of people don't enjoy the public domain scene, but it has it's upsides, like expanded availibility to information, and usually, it's all free of charge. it's these 'l33t warez boards, and d347h hax0r hpavc boards that are the disgusting ones. if you have any comments, you know where to reach me. 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