[snip]Av> Av> 2023-06-17Av> The following NET 1 nodes have been delisted due to inactivity.
They come and they go.
They come and they go.
You're not wrong, just so long as others come along :)
They come and they go.
You're not wrong, just so long as others come along :)I guess it's not all that surprising - there's a level of commitment required to run a BBS and let's face it, not too many users 'call' BBS's these days :-(
So if someone's in it for the users, then it's not hard to see why they might get disheartened and move on to other things.
I'd love to find that silver bullet that draws at least some reasonable number of users back to BBS's again.
I'd love to find that silver bullet that draws at least some reasonabl
number of users back to BBS's again.
Perhaps the ongoing dissatisfaction with social media may help? I think
it is to a degree. But more so with BBS/retro stuff as an escape from
the content and algorithmic oversights of social, rather than as a total replacement for it.
That said, I do enjoy echomail chatting the most out of all the stuff I can do in BBSing, as I can do it at my own pace and in a way that is not visual and multimedia overload.
That said, I do enjoy echomail chatting the most out of all the stuff I can do in BBSing, as I can do it at my own pace and in a way that is not visual and multimedia overload.
i think it's rewarding modding the bbs too.. drawing ansi, leaving no prompt or sliver of text untouched and uncolorized in a matching theme. even if nobody calls it's still cool to me.
They come and they go.
You're not wrong, just so long as others come along :)
I guess it's not all that surprising - there's a level of commitment required to run a BBS and let's face it, not too many users 'call' BBS's these days :-(
So if someone's in it for the users, then it's not hard to see why they might get disheartened and move on to other things.
I'd love to find that silver bullet that draws at least some reasonable number of users back to BBS's again.
enjoy our creations :-) Mine is very much a work in progress. Wish I'd kept the backups from the BBS I ran in the 80's & 90's - it was a bazillion 360k floppies, most of which grew mould over time :-(
well-done (aBSINTHE, Frozen Floppy) then thats a big draw... for me, I really think ppl call when a sysOp is active and present; I send new
users unique reply emails and try to gauge whether they're new [extra
yeah i know what you mean.. i used to get the 100pack 3.5" floppy disks almost every year for christmas in the early 90s and now i have none of them.. not that what was on them was particularly valuable.. but for nostalgia sake it'd be cool to poke around
Pretty sure I ran 2oFB for a full year+ with ZERO callers. :P
yeah, if we're talking bringing back call levels like the good old days, i'd imagine if you ran a support BBS for something else, you might draw
in quite a few people to check it out. since it sort of 'forces' that interaction. and then from there they poke around once their problem has been fixed.
there's a tech ex-youtuber that runs a board (or did?) that was pretty popular recently. i'd imagine in that case it's appeal was bypassing the YouTube comment section to chat with the host. (kind of like how the LTT web forum is popular) but it's one of those things like.. they don't necessarily use it because they like BBSes so there's no conversion to
BBS users for all of us..
who knows.. and the concensus seems to be none of us are too worried
about it, which is good.. it's a cool hobby :)
For the Atari crowd, the "Retro Revolution" breathed some life into it, but at the end of the day it's still mostly the SysOps (and not even all of them) and a handful of "callers" who keep the activity going. A lot
of the "activity" seems to center around topics that probably make you wonder if some of these guys ever got out of a high school mentality... though it can still be entertaining. Some of our BBS's can get 10-20 messages a day and a dozen callers.
Some of it is the uniqueness of the retro, but also... sometimes having that social media presence helps. After all, Particles! (Commodore BBS) has been active all this time, even during my "dead" years. I think his Facebook page probably had quite a bit to do with it.
Pretty sure I ran 2oFB for a full year+ with ZERO callers. :P
I think it's one of a few things... if the system is so unique, or well-done (aBSINTHE, Frozen Floppy) then thats a big draw...
new to 2oFB [tell them about the board]. I know I've made fast friends with folks over that first email
seeing other active parts of the board... 'build it and they will come'
- even if it takes a year of dead air!
yeah i know what you mean.. i used to get the 100pack 3.5" floppy disks almost every year for christmas in the early 90s and now i have none of them..
not that what was on them was particularly valuable.. but for
nostalgia sake it'd be cool to poke around
there's a tech ex-youtuber that runs a board (or did?) that was pretty popular recently. i'd imagine in that case it's appeal was bypassing the YouTube comment section to chat with the host.
who knows.. and the concensus seems to be none of us are too worried
about it, which is good.. it's a cool hobby :)
Once I get my BBS setup the way I want it, I really should look
into a web based terminal client to reduce the complexity of
accessing it (no software to download & setup).
I don't know if you already chose your BBS software package (sorry, I haven't read all mails in this thread),
but Synchronet offers a web
interface for the BBS which includes fTelnet.
With some changes, it can also be configured to not make any
connections to remote services to make it work.
You can see it in action here: https://box.imzadi.de
I don't know if you already chose your BBS software package (sorry, I
haven't read all mails in this thread),
Yeah, I've been running Mystic for a while now.
but Synchronet offers a web
interface for the BBS which includes fTelnet.
With some changes, it can also be configured to not make any
connections to remote services to make it work.
I did take a look at Synchronet, and I no doubt will again in due course.
You can see it in action here: https://box.imzadi.de
I had a very quick look (at work at the moment). Will look more tonight
:-)
I think it's one of a few things... if the system is so unique, or well-done (aBSINTHE, Frozen Floppy) then thats a big draw...
It'd be a big draw for getting users to return, but how do systems like that attract users in the first place?
Way back when, my dialup BBS, like everyone else, got listed in
published BBS lists and users actively called around to see which boards they liked, but that's not a thing in 2023 :-(
I still have friends today that I met through the dialup BBS I ran in
the late 80's & 90's :-)
I agree - the Atari, Commodore and [some] Amiga boards seem to get
ALL those platforms callers; which they should... I feel like the Mystic/Synchronet's are the 'dime a dozen'.
Once I get my BBS setup the way I want it, I really should look into
a web based terminal client to reduce the complexity of accessing it
(no software to download & setup).
The main part of that is joining the BBS community. Whether a user
never left and has always been a part of the BBSing community, fsxNet
and FidoNet - or a new BBS user joins and starts communicating here (fsxNet) and the other networked parts of BBSing - MRC, the Commodore
BBSes if yer into C= - the Atari BBSes if yer into Atari computers,
etc etc etc...
Once I met all the regulars and hung out for long enough that they
knew I wasn't just flying thru - I started to get more and more
support. Both callers, ANSI art and etc.
Commodore Clifford wrote to tassiebob <=-
1) You'll never get it set up the way you want it... That's a trap we
all fall into... there's always something more you'll think of!
One thing I didn't do was spend a lot of time getting my BBS ready for callers. I made a really cheezy ANSI login screen, a random mailer text message (displayed before you got the "hit esc twice for the BBS" message) and changed the new user screens, then went live. I figured I'd have time to tweak as I go, and as the BBS started to take shape. Back then, the users helped shape the personality of the BBS.
Re: Re: Running a BBS
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Commodore Clifford on Wed Jul 12 2023 09:56 am
One thing I didn't do was spend a lot of time getting my BBS ready for callers. I made a really cheezy ANSI login screen, a random mailer text message (displayed before you got the "hit esc twice for the BBS"message)
and changed the new user screens, then went live. I figured I'd havetime
to tweak as I go, and as the BBS started to take shape. Back then, the users helped shape the personality of the BBS.
Back in the 90s, and also when I set up my current BBS, I wanted to
customize it at least a bit before I had it go live. I didn't want to have
users be put off by seeing a relatively stock BBS and only call once. I
always tweak as I go, but I wanted at least my menus to be customized the
way I wanted and have some doors & files available when I made my BBS go
live.
| Sysop: | digital man |
|---|---|
| Location: | Riverside County, California |
| Users: | 1,043 |
| Nodes: | 16 (0 / 16) |
| Uptime: | 91:33:55 |
| Calls: | 500,956 |
| Calls today: | 5 |
| Files: | 109,377 |
| D/L today: |
1,347 files (253M bytes) |
| Messages: | 304,707 |
| Posted today: | 1 |