bbs bs

[SHERMAN KAPLAN]

I'm just a small player around here when it comes to computechnonerd
stuff, including bulletin boards. But, it seems to me as a user (whose
286 is megalithic compared to your 386, 486, and who knows what else)
that operating a Bulletin Board is an endevour for a hobbyist, and that
if there are costs to be borne, they should be those of the operator.
There are exceptions, of course. For example, CPSNET is planning to add
the Grolier Encyclopedia plus other CD Rom Database goodies and
probably will charge about $25 for access (not sure whether that will
be permanent or annual...) But, frankly, when I read about sysops
whining because of the cost of a hard drive, et al., that seems to me
to be the cost of keeping your hobby going. If I collect stamps and
show them to you, I cannot expect you to pay the cost of my album. I
would like to add one other note. I am not a programmer, so when I get
notes from syops about ul/dl ratio, what am I to do....shuffle programs
between systems. It seems to me that people who use bulletin boards
should get some sort of download credit for message posts. This
encourages the use of the message base (which frankly for me is the
heart of the systems I log onto) and it makes those of us who are not
programmers feel less like leeches.
Now, I have a moral question for those of you still with me. On at
least one of the boards I am signed onto, there exists what appears to
be very open and blatant piracy. I am talking not about shareware
piracy, but commerical program piracy. One board sysop is even offering
copies of MS DOS 5.0 to users who make a special request. He goes so
far to say that he will post the docs in a text file soon. So, is it my
obligation as a non-pirate to report this board, or simply ignore the
situation?
PS. Welcome back, Henry. Like others here, I too missed the board
during your hiatus. (What an odd word...it sounds like a disease...!)
BTW, do all you people know each other personally, or are you just bbs
friends. And, if the latter, is anyone interested in a gathering of
sorts in real life? Just asking...