dkl@xcluud.sccsi.com (David Leikam) (06/15/91)
shiva@pro-lep.cts.com (Shiva The Destroyer) writes: > In-Reply-To: message from greg@hoss.unl.edu > > Saying that the ability to run bbs software sans hard drive is a > positive selling point doesn't make sense to me. I can't take a bbs > seriously that only runs on floppies. First, it would be too slow, > and second, there wouldn't be enough to it to make it worth my while > to call it. > Breathes there a board so fortunate that it's never had a hard disk crash? I doubt it, and I sure don't know of any, not that have been up for a reasonable length of time. It happened to me. I had to run off of floppies and a huge ramdisk. I'm still basically running the programs off the ramdisk, I liked it so much. Between the two, posting didn't miss a beat. Activity was as high as before the crash, and I may say immodesttly that it was at least as interesting as what had gone before. What I'm saying, really, is that hardware and other techie features don't prove ANYthing one way or the other. Absence of a harder does not a bad board make. Presence of an alphabet-soup of protocols does not a good board make. So, what DOES make a difference? The users. Users make aa difference. You might say they're the critical factor in a board's success, for theey are the source of interesting messages (or the absence thereof). For the benefit of the innocent reader trying to choose between BBS software, I simply have to mention this critical factor. Anyone can judge for themselves, the technical merits of one software vs. another - it's so much a matter of opinion about relative importance of features anyway, that nothing can be reasonably said anyway. BUT: I have noticed a distinct difference in the type of user that each one attracts. I'm not saying one is "better" than the other, just that they're different. And it's THAT difference that the aspiring sysop ought to consider very carefully, in deciding just what sort of board he wants to run. No other factor has the overwhelming importance of this one. And it's a hard lesson to learn.