Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: campbell%hpdmd48@hplabs.HP.COM (Gary Campbell)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Artic BBS
Message-ID: <14711@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 4 Oct 90 14:11:02 GMT
References: <14570@bunker.UUCP>
Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Reply-To: campbell%hpdmd48@hplabs.HP.COM (Gary Campbell)
Distribution: misc
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Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 10873

I've been planning to write Artic for a few weeks, and like a lot of
letters I'm planning to write-- well, I'd better do it here or it may
never get done!

First, I like the idea of a support BBS.  It's been a long time since
I've used the Artic board, so I don't remember specifics, but in short,
if they're going to have a board, it ought to work.  There were some
areas-- new products, I think, where there were some items that showed
up in the listing but wouldn't list anything.  I don't remember the
details, but I wasn't the only one to notice it.

I don't think that Artic needs to moderate conferences (they said
something about getting guest moderators), but they need to either
answer all messages sent to them in the public message areas, or state
clearly what you need to do to send a message so that they will see it.
I left some messages in public areas asking about things that Artic
Vision would or wouldn't work with which they never answered.  I don't
remember, but I think I sent them to Artic rather than "all", but in the
public areas so that anyone else could answer too.  I never got a
response from them.

I appreciate the desire to make their board easy to use with speech, but
I don't think that regular BBS software is that difficult to use.  I
would rather see the login sequence use a name like other boards, or
maybe the AV serial number, rather than a special user number.  I would
like to see a system for off-line message reading, like the Mark Mail
door which works with ez-rdr like on our local BBS running PCBoard.  I
would like to move to a more automated message processing mode,
especially for long distance boards, and would therefore like to find
out which areas have messages I haven't read, or be sequenced through
selected areas with new messages so that I could write a terminal
program script to get my messages.  The Mark Mail door does this and
compresses the messages to boot.  Then ez-rdr lets me read and reply to
them off line so I don't have to run up a phone bill reading, and lets
someone else use the board.

I doubt I will be very active on the board -- I'm hard pressed to decide
whether or not I can aford the time to follow a couple of conferences on
our local board.  However, it is a nice way to get help when I have a
problem.  I think that carrying a national conference like Blinktalk
could also be a valuable service unless people have cheaper access
through other boards.

Well there-- finally-- I think that's it, at least all I can remember
right now.  Now, I wonder if they've got my system fixed so I'll have to
go back to work :-).

--
Gary Campbell