What is a Bulletin Board System A Bulletin Board System is an Online Service that allows callers to Send and Receive Private E-Mail, Read and Post Messages under Topic Forums, Upload and Download Files, find Tech Support, have live "Chat" conversations with other callers (public and private), play online games, and much more. It is NOT the Internet. For example, America Online and CompuServe are just a BIG Bulletin Boards! What makes a local BBS special, is the system speed, personal service, the support, and the members. People tend to get to know one another on a local service. And they even develop relationships! And keep in mind - these are people in YOUR AREA - not someone from halfway around the globe! Believe it or not - the Internet DOES NOT HAVE EVERYTHING! Local Services also cost far less, are MUCH FASTER, and usually much easier to use than a big online service or the Internet. The Internet has it's purposes, but comparing it to a BBS is like comparing apples and oranges! Think of it this way - where would you rather hang out to relax - at the Club (A BBS) or at an overcrowded mall (The Internet)? Also - a local online service can be tapered to the callers' needs. It adjusts to the members wants and desires, where as the Internet is merely Content, and Impersonal ! ---------------------------------------- Servant of the Lord: ONLINE! BBS has for you many activities and resources: From the MAIN MENU any of the following can be accessed with a simple keystroke: A. Access to the Message Menu for many Christian and other message networks! 1. Join any conference area on a topic that interests you without the bother of bad language and spam! 2. Offline message reading software available for reducing your LD bills! B. Access to the File Menu for over 50,000 Christian resource files and other shareware resources! 1. Read information on any online file! 2. Nearly instantaneous search for keywords on any type of file! 3. Download and upload VIRUS FREE files! C. Bulletins, such as the JESUSBBS list, how to handle online problems, Today in History, Cults Catalog, the Virginia Weather, statistics, and many online games results! D. Online games such as Champion of the Cross, Bible Themes, Days in History, U.S. BBS List, Classified Ads access, U.S. Census info, Hubble Space Telescope info, and 20+ more! E. Questionnaires for fun and information! F. Set Your Settings the way You want them! G. Leave a [C]omment to the SYSOP! From any Menu: Instant Online Help. As with all menus, just press the key! ---------------------------------------- From : DON WAYBRIGHT Number : 856 of 856 To : ALL Date : 11/27/1997 01:52 Subject : Editing Help Reference : NONE Read : [N/A] Private : NO Conf : 426 - MIDVANET FIDO Here is the proposed content for a flyer. Anyone who like to make some suggestions please feel free. Obviously the fonts and pitch cannot be shown here. In it's current state it takes up one full page. Bulletin Board System (BBS's) Remeber life before the Web? When you spent hours online calling BBS systems in the Richmond area? Remeber the online games you use to play? Remember the national and international message conferences/forums? Remember when these systems were your source for the latest and greatest shareware software out there? When did you last call a local BBS? Bet you have been too busy surfing the Web! Well, BBS systems have not faded away. They are still out there. They are still a source of fun, interest, and entertainment. For those who have never logged onto a BBS, try it! The majority offer free access to the public. You have nothing to loose! To learn more about BBS Systems, Download software to call BBS Systems, and get phone numbers to the Best BBS systems in the Richmond area check out our web site at: www.rebel-tech.com/net264.html --- * Origin: G.R.C. BBS -=- Richmond, Va -=- (804) 328-5079 (1:264/400) _____________________ WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A BBS? "The BBS is not as glitzy as the web but it has more to offer." "OK, call me naive ('cause I am regarding BBS), but what is it that makes BBS so much better than a WWW site (or combination of www/ftp/eMail/news)?? "Bearing in mind one can easily (freely) implement interactive chat sessions, post messages etc., in a web page, and also easily (from most browsers) send/receive eMail and post/read news and upload/download via FTP?" "What is it I'm missing out on from not getting on to a BBS?" All these questions and more are being asked lately. And I thought to take a moment or two to respond... Well for one the BBS is faster. Generally most of the customers for a BBS come from the local area and call in via phone line and modem - or on larger systems they may even have "local access" numbers in other cities or over state lines. By not going through the internet response is faster (BBSs were around long before the internet got popular). This is not to "down" the internet - more and more BBSs are getting connected to the internet every day, but generally BBSs are more local. The biggest advantage to calling a BBS for downloading vs. a web page is the download/upload speed for files. I have yet to be able to download as fast from a web page in comparison to a BBS. File transfer speeds from a BBS are commonly in excess of 3000 cps compared to 1200 cps. On most BBS systems, files are also usually well organized in libraries and have full descriptions. Also, a connection with a BBS is not subject to slow down because you have a dedicated modem connection directly with the computer that runs it compared to depending on many servers on the internet. While it is true that you can do chat (sorta) and e-mail and other things on a web page. The web page doesn't have the local flavor of a BBS. Most BBSs are one- or two-man operations and as such they tend to have a more personal atmosphere than a web page. Many people get on a BBS in the late afternoon or early evening just to unwind and talk and joke with friends. A BBS tends to have more a feel of *community*, much like a favorite restaurant or bar where you meet with friends. (When I lived in Sardinia and elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East, a "bar" was a family place, not a den of iniquity.) You can't really compare posting msg's on a web site to msg's on a bbs...A bbs is instant real time chat and msg'ing. A bbs is a place that you feel you go to, a web page sits and stares at you. Compared to a bbs the web doesn't even have the right to use the term "interactive". I'm not down on the web, but I am really sick of everyone comparing them. They no more compare than apples and oranges in my mind. Each has features that the other lacks with a few overlaps of course. To say one is better than the other would be an injustice to both. Most BBSs have an ANSI (Text with colors) interface versus a Windows (Graphic) interface - although many are converting to a Windows interface. Some people find this to be a drawback for the BBS. The ANSI interface is not mouse oriented but tends to be faster and in some respects easier. (Trying to chat on a web page is a good example - you write a line and have to click in the "send" button and wait for another single line to come back. On a BBS you type a line and press return - things continue instantly from there, as each user adds his comments the text just scrolls line by line from the bottom of the screen to the top with no delays.) Most of the "point and clickers" have a little trouble with the ANSI/text interface at first but most pick it up fairly fast and some find they don't want to use the Windows interface anymore to access the BBS . The BBS and the Web page tend to be compared over and over, but really the BBS in a different animal. The BBS from the start was meant to be a meeting place for people with like interests to chat, send e-mail, play games, and just generally have fun (although sometimes a BBS is used for a tech support or information access functions). The web page, while it does have similarities to the BBS, it is meant more as an infomation providing device. As such you click here and you click there and look at different pages, but it doesn't have the same sense of community that a BBS can. FTP is another major difference. Most BBSs that are connected to the internet offer FTP. (SOTL does). But (for the files local to the BBS) the BBS has an interactive file system that lets you read a description of each file and then tag it for download later. In FTP you can download files but if you don't know that you are looking for there are no descriptions to read by each of the files. Also the BBS lets you search for a file by description or file name and other factors - much that same as a search engine like Yahoo, only local to the BBS. Most BBSs have between 500Mb to serveral Gigabytes of files on-line. Both the Web page and the BBS have much to offer and their offerings do cross a bit, but they are not same thing and should not be thought of as such. The BBS tends to be more personal and local, while the web page tends to be more "internet wide" and commercial. Please don't get the idea that I'm trying to start a "down with web pages" debate - I'm not. One is not better or worse than the other. BBSs have fill one need in the on-line world, web pages fill another. Really the best way to find out more about the BBS (and it's general feel) is to experience it for yourself - log onto several BBSs. Try to find a BBS that is popular in your area. You might just find one that kinda feels like home and you might find that want to come back from time to time to visit. Well I hope I have given you *some* idea of what a BBS is like and how it is not the same as a web page. Again, go visit some BBSs! Like this one. :) If you haven't yet picked this up from the ongoing discussion, there's probably nothing better than logging on to some BBS's to understand why. I've found generally that those who started out in the online world with BBS's, now use both the WWW and BBS's, for they realize the strong points of each. Those who start out with the www generally don't know about BBS's, think the www is the sum of the online experience. Very generally, with BBS's: 1) displays are much faster 2) file transfers are much faster 3) you have a great choice in transfer protocols, not just ftp 4) you can generally access most BBS's with any terminal program and any operating system, even CPM, old TRS-80's, Commodore 64's,128's 5) most websites don't offer messaging beyond email. The newsgroup reading I've seen is not via the particular website but your browswer, with some exceptions. 6) On a BBS you can do email. You can do newsgroups, you can do echomail, you can do local mail. 7) I've heard the analogy of comparing newsgroups to Fido echoes as like the difference between a food fight and a dinner party. This seems to hold true for many of the newsgroups I've checked out, where, "Make $50,000 in 3 weeks", or "Check out my hot xxx website" seems to be the main thread regardless of the title of the newsgroup 8) Tools for offline email and message reading seem to be much more mature and efficient. As an example, on one of the mailing lists I run, several members complained about the abrasive posts of a particular member or two on the list. As the posts in question were on topic, and were not personal attacks, I advised everyone to just put offending posters or the subjects they post about in their twit list. 95% of the people reading the list from the Internet side (as opposed to BBS's), had no idea what I was talking about. Well these are a few off the top of my head. The qualities mentioned earlier ARE available on the Internet, but it's rare they are all available from the same site. THAT is part of what makes a BBS, and it contributes to a sense of community lacking on the web generally. But things ARE improving, as many programmers are rushing to create real BBS's on the web. Some are here. Some are almost here. _____________________ This is still on the continuing discussion of a BBS versus the INTERNET that I started in the last issue. The following is a direct quote from two fellows, Nelson and Jim. Nelson appears only once as the questioner as he replies to Jim's statement. "-> > missing and need to be informed! There's just nothing on the -> >www that can compare to the power and efficiency of a good BBS -> >interface, especially a QWK mail door. We just need to get em -> >to try it! -> -> Excuse me Jim, but "nothing on the www that can compare"? Yup. Power and efficiency as in speed of file transfers. Power and efficiency as in speed of screen displays. Power and efficiency as in qwkmail. I carry over 900 conferences on my system. My typical caller has maybe 12-20 of them selected. They can log on, grab their mail, and log off in a 1-2 minute connect. I love Metaworlds, but if anyone has to sit at a browser to read mail, they'd be there for hours in order to read, absorb, and formulate intelligent replies, assuming they read the same 300-400 messages that my typical user takes in his qwk packet. With qwkmail, I'm reading my mail later when more convenient, often in my car while waiting to pick up my kids from school, or in a doctor's waiting room, etc. Reclaiming lost time like that is MUCH more efficient than anything you can do on the world wide wait. I've got at least one subscriber who reads his on his laptop on the train on the way to work, but he only has to connect for 1-2 minutes early in the AM to get his mail. That's just a few examples of the power and efficiency of BBS's Nelson but it doesn't stop there. You should check out some BBS's and see what you're missing. Jim" A lot of us BBS sysops have been saying this, believing this, hoping this ... Well when Dvorak says it, it kinda validates it. In the February 1997 issue of BOARDWATCH in John Dvorak's column, he discusses how AOL's move to flat rate service will require them , and Compuserve, to basically come up with a completely new model in order to maintain and generate revenue. And what model does he come up with, and logic dictate? The BBS model! Here is the relevant paragraph from Dvorak's column in Boardwatch: "Here's what AOL and CIS need to do. They must each develop exclusive properties that are worthwhile enough for a person to say to his or herself, "Gee, I see that AOL has that interesting newsletter that I cannot get anywhere else. I'm currently paying my ISP for just web access and email. I can instead pay AOL the same amount and get these other things free." AL ISP's have been fretting over something like this which requires them introducing exclusive value added services. BBS operators, ironically have had this mindset from the beginning and they are in a powerful position to create value added content ISPs. Most of the BBS's operators who have become ISPs have often spun off their BBS into an open website "for the community, doncha know". It shouldn't take a genius to return to the closed BBS state-of-mind. Many closed private BBSs which opened ISP gateways from within their service are in a good position to exploit this value-added necessity. A well-designed protected home page with local news and information and information available free for the $19.95 monthly fee may pay off as a model in the future. Whatever the case the independent ISP should look in the rear view mirror and see AOL looming and decide what to do to keep them back there. It won't be easy." It only makes sense, common sense. If people are given a choice between the plain no-frills ISP, and one with value added quality local content for the same price, which will they choose? We as BBS sysops in many cases already have the quality local content. Bring in Internet access and you'll be positioned ahead of the ISP who doesn't offer a BBS as an entrance way, right from the the getgo. It doesn't have to cost alot. At first you can use something like Cyberspace Transporter to do this. If you shop around you should be able to get a dedicated dial-up 28.8k or 33.6k line for $100/month. The rule of thumb is one line for every 10 customers max. LN>OK.. time for true-confessions... I have never used a BBS... don't know >how to start... What can a BBS do for ME? LN>I have AOL. I have an ISP. I have a web page. What is the difference? There are probably many answers to this. With around 100,000 BBSs in the world there are many different types fulfilling many different needs. Also, so this doesn't get interpreted as a "which is better" type message, let me say that each online venue, BBS, www, AOL, CIS, etc. has its own particular strengths. I use them all. Two strengths of the BBS is EFFICIENCY and CONVENIENCE. On my system I carry approximately 1000 message conferences. A few are newsgroups, a few are email lists like this one and ones that I run, several are private email such as Internet, FidoNet, and local, but the vast majority are Fidonet ECHOES and echoes from other Fido-like message networks. Unlike most newsgroups, these message areas have no SPAM and almost no flaming. The reason being is that each has rules and a moderator and if you violate the rules you can be thrown out and denied access to them from every BBS in the world. Such a thing would be impossible to carry out in Newsgroups. This results in much more civil and useful discussion. Additionally, while in Newsgroups and Email lists every message is addressed to ALL, this is not so in the Fido type echoes, so, even though the echoes are still a public broadcast medium, messages can be (and are) addressed to individuals. This allows threads to develop and is a more vibrant messaging format. Offline qwk tools can then be used to handle such threads in specific ways to organize, sort, and filter messages. BTW, there is also quantity, and you can find an echo to cover just about any subject you want to discuss or learn more about. The average DAILY Fidonet feed is about 30 megabytes. Much less than USENET of course, but with a MUCH higher signal to noise ratio than USENET. So you can see it's not exactly a dead medium! I run a half-dozen or so Email lists from my BBS which has two Internet gateways, and when I first started them I was surprised by the many requests from the "BBS-challenged" types for a digest mode on the lists, for what basically was very little mail, maybe 15 messages per day per list. Many Fido areas have 300 messages per day! My system processes between 20,000-30,000 messages per day. My typical user takes perhaps 15-20 of my 1000 message areas in his qwkmail packet, with maybe 400-600 messages in it. He is on and off my system in LESS THAN TWO MINUTES. I don't know about you but I have never been able to do anything on the www or AOL in two minutes. Quite the opposite, the WWW has been a sinkhole for my time. Using Offline tools like 1ST READER, which is just one of many good qwk readers out there, the caller can then organize the messages by thread (They are already separated by topics, or Echo_Names, on the BBS), by who they are from, by subject, date, or whatever. They can be saved or filed in the reader's built in database management system for future reference. If they find a particular person annoying, they can put him in the reader's TWIT or IGNORE file and never see another message from that person again. They can do the same with a particular subject. So these are some of the reasons for the power and efficiency of the BBS format. Also the faster display speeds and faster file transfer speeds contribute to getting on and off quicker. Another contributing factor to the higher efficiency is that the typical BBS user seems to be more skilled in messaging than the typical www or Internet user. In Internet messages you very often see people over-quoting messages, replying to a message and quoting the entire text of a previous message when only a small portion is needed to remind others of the thread. You even see signatures and message headers quoted from previous messages! This makes for very sloppy, overly long, and difficult to read messages, and is a waste of bandwidth too. This sort of thing is very rare on BBS's and in BBS message networks. CONVENIENCE: Say that one of my users needs to check out a particular web page or two and doesn't have time for the "World Wide Wait". He just requests the URL when he logs on to get his mail. The next day when he logs back on, (or later that day if he wanted it sooner), the web page is returned to him in his Internet email, part of his qwkmail packet. He can then load it into his browser offline if he wished, and at his convenience, or he could use the utility we provide to strip out the HTML and view it in any text editor or word processor. SO...there's just a few advantages of the BBS format, real strengths to people whose time is valuable and limited. I imagine that someone who runs a different type of system could tell you a completely different story! Most of the above is to be credited to: Jim Henry | AirPower Information Srvcs Home of AIRGUN*HQ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- .---. .----------- SERVANT OF THE LORD: ONLINE! / \ __ / ------ Christian Interactive Information Service / / \( )/ ----- (804)590-0016 (modem) * ICQ: 2523065 ////// ' \/ ` --- FIDO: 1:264/234 * * * ICFN: 12:3102/7 //// / // : : --- http://www.sotl.org * * * postmaster@sotl.org /// / /` '--a service of Whole Counsel Ministries, Matoaca, VA. // //..\\ ... they shall soar on wings like eagles. (Is.40:31) ----UU----UU---------------------------------------------------- '//||\\` Are you a subscriber to SERVANT_L mailing list? ''`` Copyright 1986-2000 Whole Counsel Ministries Copyright 1986-2000 The Servant of the Lord: ONLINE! 6113 West River Road Matoaca, VA., 23803-8047, USA