leif@ambush.UUCP (Leif Andrew Rump) (04/19/88)
I posted my first letter concerning Worlds best Bulletin Board System (WBBS) one month ago and here is a "summary" of what I received in the meantime. I'm still looking for any kind of information that can be usefull to make WBBS, incl. technical. I (tried to) send replies to all the letters I received with suggestions to WBBS, but I ended up getting almost anything back! So if You didn't receive a reply, you will maybe find it here... (We also had mailserver problems so if your letter isn't here (and it contained suggestion to WBBS) then please remail it). To distinguish between the letters i received and the replies I send, I put the text RECEIVE and ANSWER in between plus ==== or ---- if it was from another user or it's from the same user. But first the original letter: Path: ambush!leif From: leif@ambush.UUCP (Leif Andrew Rump) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,news.misc Subject: Worlds best Bulletin Board Systems - let's all make it! Message-ID: <612@ambush.UUCP> Date: 16 Mar 88 10:14:07 GMT Organization: AmbraSoft A/S (Denmark) Keywords: BBS The BBS society is growing, if not exploding, these years. Even in small countries like Denmark we see new BBS's pop up almost every day thanks to the (famous) people who made f.x. OPUS PD! But does OPUS, Fido, ... satisfy our needs or is it just that they are PD programs that make them so succesfull as they seem to be? (Before anybody send me hate-letters, let me note that I'm a Sysop myself on a OPUS BBS and I love it - really - but I'm missing something!!). I'm going to collect ANY ideas that can be used to make worlds best BBS! If YOU have: any ideas, know a system, hate a system, technical suggestions, anything, ... ... ... please let me know! PS: I'm NOT going to claim copyright (please laugh! :-) ) on any of the informations passed! On the contrary because I'm not sure that I am going to make WBBS myself ((c) Copyright 1988 by Leif Andrew Rump, All Rights Reserved - it happens everytime i write copyright!). I would jump in joy if I one day receive a BBS that please the user AND sysop in any way!!! I'm listening! Leif Andrew Rump alias ABC Sysop (+45 6 80 05 44, 24h, 300/1200) ==== RECEIVE ==== >From slocum Sat Mar 19 23:45:49 1988 One thing I'd like to see is mail between users on the same system, without having to use private messages on some default board. Also, automatic checking for mail in the netmail boards would be handy. The local FIDO/OPUS BBS has a routine that lists the names of people who have netmail, but what I'm thinking of is more like the Unix shell "You have new mail." message. I've used a brain-damaged BBS called T-Net (actually pretty nice, if simple) that has some fairly good editing routines you can use when typing posts. I'd like to see something better than the current "let's just retype the line" editor on OPUS. I also don't like the way that a blank line is used to end an Enter session. I usually like to put blank lines in my messages, and it gets really annoying to need to put a space on the line, so it doesn't get read as the end. The mail on T-net allows you to reply, save, delete messages. (To try out these features, call the Steve Jackson Games BBS in Austin (yes, it's PC-Pursuitable) at (512) 447-4449 (8-none-1)) (this bbs is actually a PC rewrite of the original Apple II T-Net. The original also had a heirarchical file system in which you could get a menu of the areas in one level, select one, and get a list of the areas at that level, etc. until you find a file and print it. This is also nice, but hasn't been implemented on the PC rewrite yet.) ---- ANSWER ---- Your letter puzzled me, because almost anything you described is implemented on my Opus-system (except for the tree structure), but please correct me if I'm wrong. >One thing I'd like to see is mail between users on the same system, >without having to use private messages on some default board. Unless the sysop only allows private letters, then it should be (I don't know why it shouldn't) possible to send letters to a specific person and still allow other's to read them. I miss a feature to send letters to more than one person at a time - forming a group. > Also, >automatic checking for mail in the netmail boards would be handy. >The local FIDO/OPUS BBS has a routine that lists the names of people >who have netmail, but what I'm thinking of is more like the Unix >shell "You have new mail." message. On ABC BBS and a lot of other boards in Denmark we use programs like MailChek to show each user any pending mail. They don't know anything about other user's mail. > I've used a brain-damaged BBS >called T-Net (actually pretty nice, if simple) that has some fairly >good editing routines you can use when typing posts. I'd like to >see something better than the current "let's just retype the line" >editor on OPUS. I also don't like the way that a blank line is >used to end an Enter session. I usually like to put blank lines >in my messages, and it gets really annoying to need to put a space >on the line, so it doesn't get read as the end. The mail on T-net >allows you to reply, save, delete messages. On Opus (v1.03b) it's possible to choose between two different editors. Lore (Line ORiented Editor) and Oped (Oansi P? EDitor - I can't remember). Oped is a full screen-editor, using VT-100 and/or WordStar keystrokes. It's quite usefull but you need at least a 1200 baud modem (One of my user screamed to use this editor - I warned him, and after trying to write a letter in Oped at 300 baud he retired!!!) ---- RECEIVE ---- >From slocum Tue Mar 22 07:39:42 1988 >Unless the sysop only allows private letters, then it should be (I >don't know why it shouldn't) possible to send letters to a specific >person and still allow other's to read them. I miss a feature to send >letters to more than one person at a time - forming a group. On my local system, board 1 is a general purpose board that you check to see if anyone sent you a personal message. There is no "Mail" facility, just a another board used for mail. You still need to select that board to read your messages. What I'm looking for is a mailer that is automatically called when you log in and lists the mail you have received, allows you to reply, delete, file away for future reference, the messages you've received. >On Opus (v1.03b) it's possible to choose between two different >editors. Lore (Line ORiented Editor) and Oped (Oansi P? EDitor - I >can't remember). Oped is probably OPus EDitor. What I'd like are some enhancements to LORE. At the moment, the "edit" command allows you to rewrite the line in question, with ^u used to copy what is already there. How about some substitution, global replacement, etc., including more commands to operate on the whole message. Also, like I said before, the space character is terrible for switching between input and edit modes. How about a solitary period in column 1? ---- ANSWER ---- Now I understand! :-) That could be nice, but I think there is one drawback: What about the mail to everybody (All)? Should everybody receive it or do you have to, as normal, to go into the boards mailarea? I think that mail send, not to a specific person, will end up gathering dust! About the editor. Both Lore and Oped (OPus Editor, of course) is so small because they are simple, and I think a lot of people want it to be that way. It's anoying to wait another 30 seconds to do something specific on the board, but I sure agree in you opinion abort the "escape character", a full stop alone would be better, but but but, what about the new user who haven't read the manual, how should he know? I'm thinking of letting the user define his/hers own escape character, but that's just one more menu-entry! Life is hard!!! ---- RECEIVE ---- >From slocum Wed Mar 23 07:19:55 1988 If you're sending a message to everyone, it logically belongs in a board. But private mail to one (or a few) user(s) should be separate. As for editors, I don't think that adding a substitute command would be that hard or time-consuming. ==== RECEIVE ==== >From robertb Sun Mar 20 00:15:18 1988 I just saw your posting about the World's Greatest BBS. Could you please send me a copy of the suggestions that you receive? ---- ANSWER ---- Sure, no problem, but what are you going to do with it (stupid question, but actually I'm curious to know what's going to happen to all this!). ==== RECEIVE ==== >From davidsen Mon Mar 21 20:04:08 1988 I would like very much to stay in touch with you. I started defining the perfect BBS a year ago, and got somewhat sidetracked. If you would like to see the partial design document, just ask. The goals of my system were to be easily usable and easily operable, since I have to be the operator. Another design goal was to reduce loading on the hardware, since I envision this as a multiuser system. This implies a good organization of the messages and files by using database techniques. The problem which was not resolved was killing linked messages. If messages are linked in such a way that the reader may follow responses, then what happens to the responses if the original poster wants to kill his/her message? There are three possibilities: refuse the poster a chance to delete the message, even if it is known to contain bad information, allow the poster to kill the original, and delete all replies to the original, or delete the original (or its text) and leave the responses dangling. I found all to be unacceptable for one reason or another. I'll bet you get a lot of responses. Perhaps you will want to start a mailing list for this discussion... ---- ANSWER ---- I would love to see your design document! I'll keep all the information I get (even the bad ones) and hopefully one day WBBS will go into the air! (If you want to I will pass usefull information on to you so you could make a comment or two to(?)). A comment to your delete problem: If the user really want's to delete his/her message, then let him/her! Opus marks any letter that have an reply with the number of the reply, so it's easy to see if there is a reply. Or, and that's a better choice I think - don't allow the user to delete messages! The sysop is then responsible to remove any message(s) that isn't relevant anymore. I will make a mailing list as soon as possible (there have been, until now, only 3 readers, but it just started yesterday so I'll wait a little) ---- RECEIVE ---- >From davidsen Tue Mar 22 18:25:55 1988 Okay, I'll dig out the design document. I haven't used it for several months, but I'll mail it from the machine on which it lives. The delete problem is philosophy, not technical. If I let the user delete the message with replies I can delete the replies, too. But that lets a user delete other's messages, so I'll just delete the original, but that leaves the readers unable to find the original (and I thought of making the replies only readable via the original message, to reduce skipping time). Finally I could not allow the poster to delete, your suggestion. This means that a mistake can not be corrected. If a post the 800 number of the Christian fellowship, and transpose two digits which makes it the number of "dial-a-porn," I want to be able to correct it. Also if I put my foot in my mouth, I want to be able to spit it out. I welcome suggestions which would avoid all of the above. The best thing I came up with is to delete the text but not the message, or to allow replacement with alternate text or an addendum. I really want to be able to delete the whole message tree if I don;t like a subject. ==== RECEIVE ==== >From msmith Tue Mar 22 16:26:19 1988 I'll tell you one thing that I don't like, and that is that in TBBS for the IBMs, to read other conferences, you have to "Join" them every time you log in. You should be able to switch back and forth faster than that. ==== RECEIVE ==== >From sechrest Tue Mar 22 16:26:27 1988 There are three things that bother me about today's bulliten boards: 1) They are not well networked. It is only recently that we are begining to see the IBM BBS's connect to the USENET and Arpa worlds. This should have been planned and exploited rather than backing into it. 2) Most bulliten boards are Dumb terminal based. And yet most IBM's and other PC's have a complex interface. Why not utilize the Screen better and really have a good interface. 3) Most bulliten boards are too linear. There should be some form of Hypertext so that you don't have to follow the structure of the BBS. There should also be convienient ways to filter out noise and focus on the interesting articles. ---- ANSWER ---- 1) I think we are quite well networked (at least in Denmark). I'm running an Opus-BBS and every early morning the computer call the host computer in Denmark and deliver all EchoMail to it. It call again an hour later and receive anything anybody elsa has been writing. This "Fido-net" works fine, and we have connections worldwide - the only problem is money - but it works. What else do you need? (It should be possible to connect f.x. OPUS to USENET and Arpa if anybody wants. 2) One of my friends thought about a more intelligent interface but you run into at least one of four problems. a) Either you have to wait a longer time before your screen shows all the needed informations f.x. some boxes to be pointed at by a mouse. b) The user has to wait until "The fancy-communication-interface" has been downloaded! c) Or you need to distribute a more complex terminal program, but what happens when you update this complex terminal program. d) And do you really want to pay (phonebill) for some fancy graphics. OPUS has something called Oansi (Opus ansi), that make it possible to make some fancy graphics and colours it works quite well but it takes time to transfer all the ansi-codes. 3) "focus on the interresting articles" - that need AI. On Opus (I know I love it!) it's possible to search for a specific subject or scan through the headers of all the letters - is it possible to do it any better? Could you please elaborate on your meaning by "linear", "Hypertext" and "structure of the BBS". Can you give an example. ==== RECEIVE ==== From: blandy One of the things I'd like to see in a BBS (I'm not a sysop, but I've seen a bad BBS and I'm a programmer) is some way of teaching the BBS about different file formats and how to do the basic operations on those new kinds of files. Adapting to old formats isn't really the point. But if one BBS could gracefully (no hacks, no rewriting) read its native files, AND handle the files from your old BBS, AND, say, act as a USENET reader, all transparently, I think that would be A Good Thing. How? First, choose a few simple, basic, powerful operations- organize the boards in a hierarchy (sp?), define List, Up and Down operations, Get a particular message, Add a particular message, Delete a message, Access levels, etc. Write your BBS using ONLY this set of operations. Then, let each individual board indicate how IT likes to be accessed. Maybe a jump table or something simple. Maybe a server process or something complex. But as long as it provides as much of the above list of operations as it can, you can do anything you like. But the idea is this: your system DOESN'T CARE how the files are organized. As long as it uses the functions provided for the particular board, it can do everything it wants, and the files will stay consistent, no matter how heterogenous your set of boards actually are. It's the idea behind object-oriented programming - you know that this thing you've got supports a few simple operations, but you don't worry about HOW; the thing in question can accomplish your requests however it needs. Extensible software - the way to go. Look at Emacs (certain implementations), VAX TPU, Hypercard.