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Hello August,

On Sat, Nov 30 2024 07:51:00 -0600, you wrote ..

> That's if the topic is linux, but you know that I am referring  
> to other topics (ie, off-topic) that might crop up here.

The thing is, most of the topic is regarding Linux and/or commands we can use
in Linux. If a few messages veers a teeny tiny bit, or for a thread to all of
a sudden change to health updates, or a holiday, or whatever, I'm not all for
up and moving the discussion elsewhere, so long as we come back to the
original topic - which we have been doing.

> It's not chasing at all. It's just going to the proper room to  
> be on topic.

There's over 200 Fidonet echos, of which probably 90% (or more) of them have
been dead for years or even decades. See if you can encourage the powers that
be  (I don't even think there are 'powers that be') to trim down the echolist
to about 50 or less not so redundant echos and I don't have a problem with
this idea at all. Everyone has been encouraged over the years to create as
many echos as they want, but nobody has ever encouraged people to pick up
after themselves and/or clean up their shit when they're not using it any
more. So good luck with that challenge. ;)

> If you're ok with off-topic messages in any echo, what's the  
> point in having named echos?  The echos in FTN may as well be  
> just a number.  Echos have a name for a reason - to indicate a  
> topic.  And if the topic veers, there are other appropriate  
> echos to take it there.

If we were to veer that far off topic, then you're probably right. However,
one or two messages don't constitute moving the entire thread elsewhere as
that will probably more than likely kill the conversation, rather than help it.

> At this rate we should encourage good stewardship of echos and  
> support the available ones too, unlike what has happend to  
> newsgroups filled with totally unrelated things in their areas.

I agree with you on this. However, "good stewardship" of echos also requires
maintenance, ie trimming the fat and unnecessary echos, maybe even combining
some that have close relation to others. Something that hasn't been done for
decades, nor has anyone cared to do it in all that time - which has already
made it become the "newsgroups" you speak of.

> Sadly, yes.. FTN/echos is not necessarily a growing tech. But  
> we shouldn't allow it to become like the garbage bin that many  
> newsgroups have become.

I also agree with you here. Have you read some of the FTN echos here in
Fidonet? Some are already a garbage bin, and some get the exact same robot
postings in them over and over (even the same robot postings in multiple
echos). Some of us, including myself, try to avoid those newsgroups errrr
echos. ;)

> FUTURE4FIDO echo is a fine place to have this conversation.   
> The echo is one of several that participates in the Telegram  
> BBS project which facilites bridging smartphone users to FTN  
> users.  I believe the Telegram BBS is written entirely in perl.

Honestly, I have no interest in Telegram whatsoever, and I don't believe that
subject ever came up until you wrote this paragraph. So there's no reason for
me to move any conversation there, seeing as though nothing I would say there
would be on-topic. 

Now, I would love to go back to discussing Linux so we can stay on-topic and
not have to move our discussion elsewhere!

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
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