On 22 Apr 23 03:30:12 tenser wrote...

On 21 Apr 2023 at 08:09a, Thom Miller pondered and said...

Today, when there are 300 boards with 3000 callers, it just
doesn't work. (I just made those numbers up, but I'd be
surprised if the scale is that far off.)

I'd say today is more like 300 BBSes with 200 callers. It mostly
seems like a thing were people set stuff up and tweak it for the fun
of it, but there's not a particularly active caller scene.

I'm a big advocate of less echoes with more conversation. I
think it makes for a much healthier system.

Agreed.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64) * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin,
New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

Agreed. The Atari BBS scene is kind of the same. We have a handful of
users, though they tend to be more active... Many tend to hate networked
echos though, and avoid them. But some of our BBS's get more local
messages a day than I see on nets. (Mostly the 8-bit ones...) But even
one of the ST boards can come close.

The problem is that there are still some SysOps that don't call other
BBSs (or even their own) and some who insist on running 2-3 BBS or more
which already spreads a thin userbase over a wider group of BBS's.

And the amazing number of "one hit wonders" who call once or twice, never
to be seen again after they've relived their youth for a few minutes
(even more fun when you spend hours working with them to get their retro
setup because they can't just use SyncTerm, they HAVE to do it on their
real retro setup).

But in the end, we suck it all up because we love it.... until the day we don't.

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ BBS - bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171)