Hello Ward,

On Sunday December 19 2021 21:46, you wrote to me:

Of course I need to reply ...

Of course. It is in your nature...

I say this is unlikely to happen. Belgium secceeded from The
Netherlands in 1830. I doubt there is a majority in either The
Netherlands or Flanders that wants to undo that secession.

1) Belgium did not secede ... it kicked the Netherlands out after conclusive military action ...

It says a lot that you start your response by claiming the dominant position in a conflict over almost 200 years ago...

Whatever... The bottom line is that the union between The Northern and the Southern Netherlands lasted less than a generation and it was the Southerners that took the initiative for the break. If, and that is a very big if, if Flanders were to join The Netherlands how long do you think it would last this time? Would the people of Flanders accept King Willem Alexander as their King? I am not saying that is my favorite outcome. If it were up to me the monarchy would be disbanded tomorrow, but although his popularity is dropping, the majority of the people of The Netherlands want King Willem Alexander to stay. For now at least. So that would be the only way it would be acceptable to the Dutch people.

Other than that, what's in it for us? Belgium is a mess with its, how many? seven or nine governments. An administrative nightmare. If it breaks up, how are we going to benefit by adopting one of the pieces?

2) The subject has recently been tabled again and I think we're about
6% away from such a majority. Politics is a strange thing. But the
royal family will use its influence to stop that and perpetuate their situation. Part of the reason the negotiations took that long and we
now have a pharce of a government.

Aren't you forgetting one thing? It takes two to tango. It is not on the table here. For Flanders to become part of The Netherlands again, the Dutch would have to want it too. There is no indication for that.

An experiment on a much smaller scale, merging Fidonet R28 en R29
failed.

That's a matter of interpretation ... from my perspective it worked

A merger is not a success unless /both/ parties perceive it as such. From my perspective - and many others in The Netherlands - it did not work. That is not a matter of interpretation, that is a fact.

very well from the first day on August 13 2004, brokered by RC28 Jan Vermeulen until it collapsed under your guidance Oct.14 2017. Jan was
a man with vision and perception.

Indeed Jan had vision. Around the turn of the century he reorganised The region. A mess of 13 shrinking nets in R28 was converted into a one net region with net 280 as the only net remaining. The vast majority of sysops in the Netherlands had to change node number. That operation went relatively smooth. There was some opposition of course, there always is, but not enough to make a difference. The operation BTW was carried out with your explicit fiat.

R29's inclusion in R28 worked flawlessly under Jan Vermeulen for 3
years, for 4 years under Johan Zwiekhorst and for 6 years under
yourself until

Flawlessly? In all those years the only sysop from Belgium other than you that I ever met in person was Steven Leeman. I met him three or four times. No one else bothered to show up on the various cons that either Jan or I organised. Nor was there a con in Belgium where Dutch sysops were invited. Most of the Belgian sysops did not seem to be all that interested in fraternising with their northern collegues. There were several other issues as well that annoyed or disappointed the Dutch sysops. Echomail comes to mind. Flawlessly? Not in my perception. On the contrary, there was plenty of conflict.

You also wanted to disband the whole net-292 and insert it into 280
with complete new numbering as per yopur defiinition of "true merging" meaning "change everything" for the remaining sysops at the time.

When Steven Leeman resigned as NC292 I saw an opportunity. Instead of finding a replacement NC for a small and shrinking net, I proposed to continue in the spirit of Jan Vermeulen and turn R28 in a one net region again. Merging nets 280 and 292 would have been a logical continuation of the visionary reorganisation plan of Jan Vermeulen.

When I presented this plan there were two Belgian sysops who had objections against changing node numbers. You and Bart Verhaeghe. Oddly enough Bart's objections melted away like snow in July when he was given his own net and his node number changed accordingly.

On top of that you wanted to scrap my 2:292/854-number which through
my ZC-status handles hundreds of links and tasks. You were going to
cause serious problems for me but also for every other sysop linking
here.

And yet you gave your fiat to Jan Vermeulen's reorganisation plan, a plan that implied a change of node number for some 90% of then R28 sysops. You praised Jan Vermeulen for his vision and perception. Apparently a visionary plan that results in changing node numers is only a good vision if it is just others that have to change....

You were well aware and waved it away as 'eat the sour apply'

Those are your words, not mine.

I did point out to you however that there would have been no problem had you used your ZC's AKA 2:2/0 for all ZC related links instead of your personal node number. That IS what these admin node numbers are for.. among other things, you know...

You never gave my plan a chance, you never gave me an opportunity to discuss it with the sysops end get feedback from them. You nipped it in the bud. "Vision" is for others.

So ... I dropped the plan and accepted Niels Jonghere as NC292. I went along with you.

When Jan Vermeulen resigned

Jan Vermeulen never formally resigned. The sad reality is that he was hit by this horrible disease that we all fear will hit us when we get old. He should have been releaved from the RC position before it got to the point that he was no longer able to properly do the job but nobody had the guts to tell him. So one day his system went off-line and that was it.

and was about to drop away he suggested not to appoint you as RC28
because you would destroy the set-up,

Really? That is not the Jan Vermeulen that I remember. The Jan Vermeulen that I remember would never have gone behind my back in such a backstabbing way. If he thought I was unfit for the RC position he would have told me in my face. And then he would have left it to the voters in a fair and square election. That is the Jan Vermeulen that I remember.

Unfortunately we can not ask Jan Vermeulen any more to either confirm or deny your assesment. So the reader will have to decide for himself if he takes you word for it or not. I do not.

so I appointed Johan Zwiekhorst which made you really pissy ...

"Pissy" is not the proper word. "Betrayed" is the better word. In the old R28 we had a tradition of an elected RC. The promise that this tradition would be continued after the merge was part of the packet that made the Dutch sysops accept the deal. When that promise was broken, the Dutch sysops felt betrayed. If Johan Zwiekhorst had been elected in a fair and square election, I and the Dutch sysops would have accepted that. No question about it. But that is not how Johan Zwiekhorst became RC28.

But... I accepted him nevertheless. I swallowed the melon and went along with you.

you decided to start interfering in the N292-segment up to the point
where the then NC292 declared it was impossible to work with you as an
RC.

NC292 submitted a segment that was in violation of FTSC standards. As an RC I considered it my duty to watch the integrity of the nodelist and act when needed. So I had no choice but to refuse to process the net 292 segment "as is". Had I accepted and processed it "as it" I would have been derelict in my duty as RC.

A poll was held and it was unanymous to pull out of R28.

So a poll was held behind my back. Coming to think of it, I only have your word that there actually was such a poll and that the outcome was unanimous. I never got any word on this alleged poll other than from you.

Stuff you did was manually editing segments because you didn't like
them.

Negative. I did not manually edit the segment.

I have a utility called Nlcheck that checks for several errors in the nodelist. It can report those errors or when so configured correct some of those errors. Not unlike your beloved Errflags. I ran Nlcheck in addition to errflags when processing the segments for the R28 nodelist. It was all fully automatic.

When to my surprise Johan left,

You did not see it coming?

the region elected you and after some years Jan Vermeulen's prophecy materialised ... you wrecked the unified region for no other reason because you figured you could.

Bullshit.

It wasn't me that created the situation that wrecked the unified region. It was you that knowingly and willingly manouvered me into an impossible position. The net 292 segment that you orcestrated was in violation of FTS-5000 and you knew I could not possibly accept it "as is". We all knew it was not Niels' idea to list these .MOB nodes as fully fledged nodes. You wanted sytems without contact information that had the reachability of a point to be listed as nodes without 'Pvt". That is a clear violation of FTS-5000.

I strongly advised against it and reluctantly offered the compromise of having them listed as Pvt nodes, but you insisted they should be listed as fully fledged nodes without 'Pvt". It was you who created that situation by pushing your .MOB node plan at all cost without compromise. A wicked plan that you launched without any consultation with the Fidonet sysops and that had no support whatsoever.

In this case I kept my back straight and did not go along with you.

Maybe you hoped the situation would resolve by me resigning and leaving Fidonet. Then you could appoint a more "ductile" RC28 that would dance to your tune. That almost happened. I was very near pulling the plug on Fidonet. But then I thought me leaving would not be in the best interest of the sysops that elected me. So I did not resign. And then you took the initiative by shoving me aside, undoing the merger between R28 and R29 and appointing Tom de Puyseleyr as RC29. That way you could go along with your ill conceived .MOB node plan.

It was you that broke it up, not me.

This whole story is indexed in archives somewhere ...

Sure there are archives. Like anyone can find things to his liking in the collection of books called The Bible, you will find things to your liking in those archives.

I'm pretty certain with another RC28 such as Kees Van Eeten, the merge could be picked-up again.

Not with Kees. Kees does not want and never wanted to be RC, so that won't work.

Merging regions can work ... R28/R29 did prove that and R20, R21, R22
and R23 are proving that every day.

I am not saying that merging regions can not and never will work. What I say is that it did not work with R28 and R29. You say it could have worked with another RC28. My response to that is that it would probably have worked with another ZC2.


Cheers, Michiel

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* Origin: http://www.vlist.org (2:280/5555)