Hello All!

When browsing through the latest full ELIST.RPT report that also contains all the posted RULes files etc I have spotted some issues :

1. The text at the right of lines have been cut off and this is due to posters NOT counting the number of characters per line and moving the offending word over to the next line. - The character limit per line is 75.
This also applies to the descriptions.

2. Some descriptions and Rules have not been passed through a spelling checker to catch your typo's, please do so and yes I am also guilty sometimes.

3. Check the rest of the content for your echo's is still correct including using valid names as moderator, from and origin. If some one attempts to contact you via netmail will your system know the non real name and pass it on to you?
'Waldo . . .' springs to mind.
Like wise the other items, no typo's, moderator list is still correct and there
is no duplication of mod and comods (if so, delete the comod as a special update). Are you making use of the width for descriptions instead of only using
35 - 40 characters per line. Or do you know something I don't?

4. Any echo that has the only moderator no longer in fido etc that needs a new moderator to take over. Yes the elist maintainer can do so if really required but I would prefer to stick to just looking after the software and it's application plus I am coming up to 75 so could use a younger person to do the honours.

5. Any other cock ups? :)

6. Any thing else I missed ?

If you would like to get the current versions of these report files namely ELIST.RPT, .NO. NA etc point your browser to :

http://www.applewoodbbs.linkpc.net/files/Elist/nightly-builds/

Where you can find all three (you do not need to elist-nightly.rar archive as thats the software - well not unless you are interested it it).

These three files can be generated during the course of a month other than the 1st or 2nd for security checks or other mundane reasons.

Useful perhaps to verify your updates now as against waiting till the new month
for the latest ELst archive ?

Vincent

--- Mageia Linux v8 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.24/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: The Elist Maintainer (2:250/1)

On 2022 Jan 08 15:43:28, you wrote to All:

3. Check the rest of the content for your echo's is still correct including
using valid names as moderator, from and origin. If some one attempts to contact you via netmail will your system know the non real name and pass it
on to you? 'Waldo . . .' springs to mind.

Waldo's Majik Fingers is an alias, so yes... netmails to that name do appear in a valid mailbox... whether that mailbox is checked on a regular basis or not is another question/matter ;)

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... When I get hungry, things die.
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hi Vincent,

On 2022-01-08 15:43:29, you wrote to All:

6. Any thing else I missed ?

Maybe the use of Distribution: could be a bit better defined. Currently it's rather a mess, these are the ones currently in use:

DISTribution: All FidoNet
DISTribution: All Fidonet Backbones
DISTribution: All Fidonet distribution paths
DISTribution: All Fidonet distribution paths.
DISTribution: All Official Fidonet Backbones
DISTribution: All Zones
DISTribution: Backbone
DISTribution: Backbone & FidoWeb
DISTribution: Direct
DISTribution: Everywhere
DISTribution: FIDO
DISTribution: FIDONet Backbone
DISTribution: Fidonet
DISTribution: Fidonet + Telegram
DISTribution: Fidonet Backbone
DISTribution: Fidonet Region 18
DISTribution: Fidonet Region 18 ONLY!
DISTribution: None
DISTribution: Not outside Fidonet
DISTribution: Region 14 Members Only
DISTribution: Region 16
DISTribution: Region 16 RC/NCs & invited guests only.
DISTribution: World
DISTribution: World-Wide
DISTribution: Worldwide
DISTribution: Worldwide + Telegram
DISTribution: Z1 Backbone
DISTribution: Z1,Z2,Z3,Z4-BACKBONE
DISTribution: {N/A}
DISTribution: {None on Record}

Most of them could/should be:

DISTribution: Fidonet

And if you have "None", why is that area in the Echolist!? ;-)


Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

On 2022 Jan 08 18:56:26, you wrote to Vincent Coen:

And if you have "None", why is that area in the Echolist!? ;-)

the echolist is not a list of active areas in fidonet... it is a list of echotags that may be available to be linked to in any FTN... if an echotag says its disctibution is "none" then it sounds like it is, quite simply, not distributed... there's nothing wrong with that...

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... We can't control the wind, but we can adjust our sails.
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-08 15:28:24, you wrote to me:

And if you have "None", why is that area in the Echolist!? ;-)

the echolist is not a list of active areas in fidonet... it is a list of echotags that may be available to be linked to in any FTN... if an echotag says its disctibution is "none" then it sounds like it is, quite simply, not distributed... there's nothing wrong with that...

An echomail area that is not distributed is a local area. There's no need to tell the world about it through the elist...

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

On 2022 Jan 08 21:36:40, you wrote to me:

And if you have "None", why is that area in the Echolist!? ;-)

the echolist is not a list of active areas in fidonet... it is a list
of echotags that may be available to be linked to in any FTN... if an
echotag says its disctibution is "none" then it sounds like it is,
quite simply, not distributed... there's nothing wrong with that...

An echomail area that is not distributed is a local area. There's no need to tell the world about it through the elist...

that's your opinion, sir... i can think of several reasons to have an echotag listed in the echolist without it being distributed... if you can't think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the last 30+ years of exactly why the echolist existed and what it was used for?

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... Winning or losing doesn't matter until you lose...
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hello mark lewis!

** On Saturday 08.01.22 - 15:54, mark lewis wrote to Wilfred van Velzen:

..i can think of several reasons to have an echotag listed
in the echolist without it being distributed... if you
can't think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the
last 30+ years of exactly why the echolist existed and
what it was used for?

What precludes another listing with a matching echotag to be
listed?

Basically, the ELIST can be used as a way to broadcast the
existence of local echos specific to one BBS?



--
../|ug
--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

On 2022 Jan 08 23:17:00, you wrote to me:

..i can think of several reasons to have an echotag listed
in the echolist without it being distributed... if you
can't think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the
last 30+ years of exactly why the echolist existed and
what it was used for?

What precludes another listing with a matching echotag to be
listed?

because there can be only one entry with the same echotag...

Basically, the ELIST can be used as a way to broadcast the
existence of local echos specific to one BBS?

so, let's start at the beginning, ok? from fidonews319...


Fidonews Page 13 12 May 1986


=================================================================
WANTED
=================================================================

Thomas Kenny, 107/316

I'm very interested in ECHOMAIL networking. I know this is a can
of worms, since some (many?) think ECHOMAIL may (will?) ruin
FidoNet. Well I'm open minded and think it just might work out.

Now to finally get to the point. I've been on a few different
FIDOs across the country and have discovered that the use of
ECHOMAIL is much more widespread then I originally thought! I've
seen several interesting topics being networked, but would have
never known about them. Since there is nobody (as far as I know)
acting as an ECHOMAIL coordinator I'd like to volunteer. I'd
like to do two things. 1 Find out which Sysops are running
ECHOMAIL and for what topic. 2 Create a wishlist registry. This
way if a Sysop wants to network an ECHOMAIL topic or generate
interest in a new ECHOMAIL topic there will be a clearing house
for such an activity!

I ask everybody that is reading this to please send me FidoNet
mail if you:

1 Are a sysop running ECHOMAIL (what topic & routing),

2 know of a system running ECHOMAIL (what net/node & topic),

3 wish there was somebody else that shared a common interest
(what topic).

Thank you very much, Thomas Kenny, Metatek FIDO, 107/316.

-----------------------------------------------------------------



and this article by mike fuchs from fidonews533...


FidoNews 5-33 Page 7 15 Aug 1988


Mike Fuchs
1:1/201

EchoList - The EchoMail Conference List
(It's bAAAAaaaack...)

Ever wonder what all those EchoMail conferences are about?
Ever wonder if there was already a conference on some
specific topic? Well that's why the EchoList was originally
created. And that's why I've resurrected it.

For those of you who might not be familiar with it, a little
history...

The EchoList is an informal listing of EchoMail conferences,
as described by each conference's moderator. It is now a
monthly publication which attempts to document certain
interesting information about EchoMail Conferences;
"interesting" to people who would like to participate,
interesting to EchoMail Coordinators and those who route the
conference traffic, and potentially interesting to the
Conference Moderator. The base product of the EchoList
database is the detailed Conference listing. But, as needs
are identified which can be satisfied with the available
information, additional reports and analyses can be
developed.

The EchoList was originated by Thomas Kenny, who maintained
it as a text file completely manually. It was a time
consuming effort, and was updated on a very sporadic and
infrequent basis. The last edition published this way was
December 1987.

Several people (myself included) were working with Thomas on
developing ways to automate the maintenance, and provide a
structured database that could be used for things other than
a simple conference listing. As a result, he assembled a
specification for submitting messages that would be used for
updating the list. Unfortunately, Thomas decided to drop
out of FidoNet before any of the code was completed. He
continues to have my gratitude for all he put in to getting
the EchoList as far as he did.

Since I was interested (for purely personal desire) in
having an EchoList, I picked-up that last 1987 EchoList,
built an R:base database and application, and keyed the
whole thing in. The result is a semi-automated update
application, and some nice report generation facilities.
There's a lot more to be done. It's still a VERY labor-
intensive task. But, I'm happy to say I've been able to
publish all updates received for the last 3 months on-time.
Now, I'm going to try and ruin that by inviting more
updates...

HISTORY LESSON OVER...
That's why I wrote this article. It has been pointed out to

FidoNews 5-33 Page 8 15 Aug 1988


me that there are a lot of people who don't realize the
EchoList is available. Most importantly, there are a lot of
Conference Moderators who don't know, and as a result their
conferences aren't in, or will soon be dropped from, that
list.

You see, one of things that seems to be widely agreed upon
is that, in order to be really useful, an EchoList needs
some control criteria. Hating bureaucracy as I do, I've
only implemented two (at this point). First, in order to be
listed, a conference must have a responsible party to whom
questions can be directed; that person is the Moderator.
Second, since reference information is only valuable if it's
up-to-date, an EchoList conference entry must be updated via
message to me on a regular basis.

So there's the reason for the article. A number of
conferences have already been dropped because they had no
moderator identified. (How anybody's supposed to join a
conference when there's no one identified to contact, I'll
never know, but so be it.) The other thing is that most of
the entries' last-update dates are VERY old. Starting with
this next EchoList, I will start enforcing a purge criteria.
An awful lot of conferences will be dropped as a result.
Many are dead wood anyway. But there are many such
conferences I know are alive and well, and I hope this
article gets the message to those moderators. If you
frequent a conference important to you, how about letting
the moderator know about the EchoList?

Oh yeah, I lied. There is one more control, but it is for
the Moderators themselves. A Moderator can submit an entry
that becomes password protected. From then-on, the
moderator has some feeling of control over the information
listed in the EchoList for their conference.

[...]


i'll stop there for now as these two articles provide the basics and they are also easily found so one can read them for themselves... how did i find these articles? i used grep and searched my fidonews archives for "echolist" and then for "thomas kenny" to find the original article(s) and motivations...

here is a list of all fidonews editions up to Vol 9 Num 52 that contain the above mentioned search terms...

grep -EiH -e "(thomas kenny|echolist)" fido???.nws | cut -d":" -f1 | sort -u

fido319.nws
fido339.nws
fido407.nws
fido410.nws
fido422.nws
fido423.nws
fido425.nws
fido426.nws
fido429.nws
fido432.nws
fido433.nws
fido439.nws
fido446.nws
fido447.nws
fido507.nws
fido508.nws
fido514.nws
fido533.nws
fido534.nws
fido541.nws
fido626.nws
fido739.nws
fido741.nws
fido817.nws
fido823.nws
fido826.nws
fido829.nws
fido837.nws
fido903.nws
fido904.nws
fido911.nws
fido912.nws
fido930.nws
fido931.nws
fido942.nws
fido950.nws
fido952.nws

i stopped there for a couple of reasons... one was just because... another was at some point, every issue contains "echolist" in it... these above are the most important, though, when it comes to the history of the echolist... there are a few more, as well, but these are the best place to start...

fido410 speaks of the format of the echolist... it even mentions one reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed... somewhere around here i have other documents that speak of maintaining echolist entries of echotags for the purposes of showing ownership and maintaining that ownership... i'm just the messenger so please don't anyone start on me about that... it is what it is... the support areas for WORDSTAR, WORDPERFECT, NOVELL, and others come to mind...

in any case, there's a bit of reading on the origins and use(s) of the echolist for everyone to enjoy for a little bit...

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... Five word horror story: Three Billion Devices Run Java
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-08 15:54:46, you wrote to me:

An echomail area that is not distributed is a local area. There's no
need to tell the world about it through the elist...

that's your opinion, sir... i can think of several reasons to have an echotag listed in the echolist without it being distributed... if you can't
think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the last 30+ years of exactly why the echolist existed and what it was used for?

You mean the practice of listing non existent areas with provocative descriptions just to anoy others?

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-09 06:10:48, you wrote to August Abolins:

fido410 speaks of the format of the echolist... it even mentions one reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed...

If you mean "Volume 4, Number 10 9 March 1987", I don't see it. Maybe you are mistaken about the exact number?

somewhere around here i have other documents that speak of maintaining echolist entries of echotags for the purposes of showing ownership and maintaining that ownership... i'm just the messenger so please don't anyone start on me about that... it is what it is... the support areas
for WORDSTAR, WORDPERFECT, NOVELL, and others come to mind...

These areas are not in the current ELIST, for a good reaseon: because they are no longer active. There is no need to list those areas for ever with "Distribution: None". If anyone is interested in that historic information they can find out by looking at old elists...

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

On 2022 Jan 09 13:56:56, you wrote to me:

An echomail area that is not distributed is a local area. There's no
need to tell the world about it through the elist...

that's your opinion, sir... i can think of several reasons to have an
echotag listed in the echolist without it being distributed... if you
can't think of any reasons, perhaps you need to review the last 30+
years of exactly why the echolist existed and what it was used for?

You mean the practice of listing non existent areas with provocative descriptions just to anoy others?

certainly not...

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... How do you organize an anarchists' conference?
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

On 2022 Jan 09 14:04:52, you wrote to me:

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-09 06:10:48, you wrote to August Abolins:

fido410 speaks of the format of the echolist... it even mentions one
reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed...

If you mean "Volume 4, Number 10 9 March 1987", I don't see it.

you don't see what? that publication or the reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed?

Maybe you are mistaken about the exact number?

nope... did you not read the bottom of page 8 of that publication???

[spoon feeding mode]

When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the
conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is
interested in STARTING a conference on the topic.

[/spoon feeding mode]

somewhere around here i have other documents that speak of
maintaining
echolist entries of echotags for the purposes of showing ownership and
maintaining that ownership... i'm just the messenger so please don't
anyone start on me about that... it is what it is... the support areas
for WORDSTAR, WORDPERFECT, NOVELL, and others come to mind...

These areas are not in the current ELIST, for a good reaseon: because they are no longer active. There is no need to list those areas for ever with "Distribution: None". If anyone is interested in that historic information they can find out by looking at old elists...

you are totally glossing over their status when they did exist... do we really need to spoon feed this stuff to you?

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... A product with 'ZERO DEFECTS' doesn't ship!
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-09 08:52:16, you wrote to me:

fido410 speaks of the format of the echolist... it even mentions one
reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed...

If you mean "Volume 4, Number 10 9 March 1987", I don't see it.

you don't see what? that publication or the reason why a non-distributed echotag may be listed?

The latter...

Maybe you are mistaken about the exact number?

nope... did you not read the bottom of page 8 of that publication???

When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the
conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is
interested in STARTING a conference on the topic.

Maybe that was a good idea in 1987, when Fidonet was totally different. But it is not current practice for the ELIST.


Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

On 2022 Jan 09 17:46:26, you wrote to me:

Maybe you are mistaken about the exact number?

nope... did you not read the bottom of page 8 of that publication???

When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the
conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is
interested in STARTING a conference on the topic.

Maybe that was a good idea in 1987, when Fidonet was totally different. But
it is not current practice for the ELIST.

i said it was one reason for listing non-distributed echotags... i didn't say anything about it being current practise... other reasons are for ownership and archives... there are others, as well... whether you agree with them or not is another matter...

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... Guns don't kill people. Bullets do.
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hello mark lewis!

** On Sunday 09.01.22 - 08:52, mark lewis wrote to Wilfred van Velzen:

nope... did you not read the bottom of page 8 of that publication???

[spoon feeding mode]

When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the
conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is
interested in STARTING a conference on the topic.

[/spoon feeding mode]

If that still stands today, shouldn't that rule be present in
the current elist how-to instead of an old .nws file from the
80s that many people wouldn't come across?

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

On 2022 Jan 09 14:28:00, you wrote to me:

nope... did you not read the bottom of page 8 of that publication???

[spoon feeding mode]

When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the
conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is
interested in STARTING a conference on the topic.

[/spoon feeding mode]

If that still stands today, shouldn't that rule be present in
the current elist how-to instead of an old .nws file from the
80s that many people wouldn't come across?

i'm guessing you have, by now, read my post to wilfred explaining that it was provided as a valid example of listing non-distributed echotags in the echolist ;)

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... Why does round pizza come in a square box?
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)

Hi mark,

On 2022-01-09 12:21:24, you wrote to me:

Maybe that was a good idea in 1987, when Fidonet was totally
different. But it is not current practice for the ELIST.

i said it was one reason for listing non-distributed echotags... i didn't say anything about it being current practise... other reasons are for ownership and archives...

Ownership of a dead area? What's the point?

The (current) ELIST is not for archiving. It's for listing active areas IMHO...

there are others, as well...

Well please mention them. I don't see it...

whether you agree with them or not is another matter...

;)

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

On 2022 Jan 09 19:22:08, you wrote to me:

Maybe that was a good idea in 1987, when Fidonet was totally
different. But it is not current practice for the ELIST.

i said it was one reason for listing non-distributed echotags... i
didn't say anything about it being current practise... other reasons
are for ownership and archives...

Ownership of a dead area? What's the point?

one point would be to maintain the ownership of the tag...

The (current) ELIST is not for archiving. It's for listing active
areas IMHO...

noted even though it is a wrong thought...

there are others, as well...

Well please mention them. I don't see it...

i've mentioned several... are you missing mail?

whether you agree with them or not is another matter...

;)

:)

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a shiny thing!"
... We don't like sissies in this neck of the woods.
---
* Origin: (1:3634/12.73)