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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: More on "The Network Nation"
Message-ID: <789@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 19:36:22 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.789
Posted: Mon Oct 27 19:36:22 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Oct-86 03:42:04 EST
Reply-To: hplabs!kitty!bakerst!kathy
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 32
Approved: taylor@hplabs

This article is from hplabs!kitty!bakerst!kathy (Kathy Vincent)
 and was received on Tue Oct 21 04:19:30 1986
 
>Well, I've never met Murray Turoff or taken a course from him or used
>his system, but I've watched a friend use it.  It struck me as about as
>friendly as the average BBS system, e.g. pitiful.  

I know nothing about EIES -  not even what it is.  But your comment about 
BBSs caught my eye.  Primarily because, in general, I'd agree with you, tho 
I am not familiar with a great variety of different kinds of BBS software.  
There is one, tho, that's really good - friendly, both for the user *and* 
the "sysop" -- The Bread Board System (TBBS) by Phil Becker in Aurora, 
Colorado.  I wish to goodness we could talk Phil into writing a version 
for UNIX.  

I think, too, that  the software and the BBS are only as good as the person 
using it and setting up the BBS.  For example.  The first TBBS system I ever 
used was set up by a friend of mine who's a newspaper man.  Simple, elegant, 
easy to use.  My friend's board has been written up in articles and books on 
the subject of BBS'ing, and he has callers from all over the the US - and 
some from outside the US as well.  But my friend is very organized.  Someone 
else I know took the same software and turned it into a jungle  - because 
his own mind is a jungle. 

Many of the bbs's are run by kids, kids who don't have a good sense of order 
and of how much structure can help people get around in a bbs..  Of the adults 
I know who've had bbs's, the boards of 4 out of 5 were really well done - and 
very popular, I might add, with *adults* who were looking for a forum for 
intelligent discussion.

Cheers.
	Kathy Vincent @ bakerst