The Death Of BBS'ing
Jeff Snyder
reality of the situation; and that is that the heyday of BBS'ing is
long past, just as the "vines" of FidoNet, DOVE.net and other message
networks are slowly withering, and are now almost completely dried up.
Let's be honest with ourselves. What is left really, other than mainly
SysOps running their own boards, and chatting with each other, and
visiting each other's boards? Sure, we occasionally get new users, but
in reality, how many of those users are regular returnees?
Most BBS visitors, other than visiting SysOps, log on out of curiosity,
or perhaps nostalgia, and once their curiosity is satisfied, and they
realize how "archaic" BBS'ing is with its ANSI graphics and CLI -- at
least when compared to the ease-of-use of the WWW -- are gone, never to
return.
Some programmers can try to spiff up BBS software like Synchronet or
Hermes, or whatever, so that it is more like the WWW, and presumably
more attractive; but the truth is, once you do that, then it is really
no longer a true BBS as BBSes were known back in the 80's and 90's. It
has become some kind of technological chimera.
Is that what we want? Some kind of monstrous hybrid?
Or is it better to let BBS'ing die with grace in its original form with
its clunky CLI and ANSI graphics?
In the end, all we can do is enjoy what little is left of the BBS'ing
world, for whatever time remains. It was a nice ride, but it is about
over.
That's technological progress.
Mew
I think, the fact is, bbs are not dying, there are become less
popular
for the main reason that made bbs at the beginning. When bbs was
becoming more popular in the mid of 80 to 95 it was because the main
(if not only) way of getting files and communcating with other
peoples
(chatting) was to go on a local bbs. That is the reason, the heart of
a message network like fidonet, to be able to chat with other peoples
around the world, and on the bbs to chat with peoples in our area,
city or province. that is the heart of a bbs, a little community and
the work of a sysop who want to do something for his users, put somes
interesting files for his users, finding what they need. Just like
today, as example, finding what is the best firewall, best anti-
virus,
etc.
Today, what peoples (almost sysop) doing wrong, its try to get
peoples
from internet. by making their bbs available on a web based bbs or by
telnet. BBS have nothing to do with internet, it always been and
always will be another network. And a bad bbs will attrack peoples as
many as a bad web site.
And bbs becoming less popular because they are less accessible than
before, today, computers are sold with explorer, half of peoples
don't
even know what google is, all they know is how to read email. don't
ask them to telnet a bbs because they reaction will be: what is
telnet ? what is bbs ?
In the past, in mid of 90 most of the time I had to go to my users
home and install terminate for them, showing them how to navigate
throught bbs, etc.
So to make bbs more popular we need theses things:
1: good looking bbs
2: lot of intesring files
3: accessibility, user support, etc
4: increase messages, link them to internet forum's.
5: more games.