nickyt@agent99.UUCP.UUCP (10/28/87)
Rob DeMarco's recent message about BBS quality versus quantity really struck a note in me. For several years I ran a system in the Bay Area called Stuart II. It was one of the first "Santa Cruz Trees" and set a strong standard for such systems. Many of the tree-structured BBSs today are clones or pseudo-clones of Stuart II. Why do I mention all of this? Because although Stuart's software was quite sophisticated (for its time), easy to use, and very fast, it wasn't the soft- ware that made Stuart such a popular and heavily-emulated BBS. It was the quality of the people who used the system -- I encouraged literacy, openness, and intelligence; I instantly deleted "garbacious" messages with no comments or attention of any kind being given. As a result, the teenage phreakers and software traders left, leaving behind a comfortable place for adults to use (that's mental and emotional adults -- our age range was from 12 to 75). But there's more to a good BBS than good sysopping and high literacy. To put together a really worthwhile environment you need to supply additional factors. For example, we started a tradition of monthly potluck parties. They became quite popular. Called "StuPots" for short, they offered all the users a chance to get to know each other directly. Plus, there were other activities as well, sponsored by various users. What it all comes down to is you have to help the users feel like they are special. A sort of family atmosphere is what we are looking for, like we are all members of some private club. But it's a funny sort opf club, because any- one can attend the meetings but only those who are accepted by the current mem- bers get to actually join. It works, but only if the sysop is diligent and committed. I invite comments. NickyT