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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs,comp.misc
Subject: Re: 1st BBS in USSR
Keywords: ussr estonia
Message-ID: <1989Dec27.150423.20260@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: 27 Dec 89 15:04:23 GMT
References: <236@oldcolo.UUCP>
Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System)
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
Lines: 26

In <236@oldcolo.UUCP> dave@oldcolo.UUCP (Dave Hughes) writes:
> I have managed [...] to log in to the 1st BBS inside the USSR. Its in
> Tallinn, Estonia [...] Below is most of that 30 minute first session.
> [...]
>City and State calling from? Colorado Springs, Colo
>Business or data phone # is? 7196324111
>   Home or voice phone # is? 7196362040

	You've heard of spelling flames and grammer flames?  Well, I guess
this could count as an ethnocentricity flame (but a polite one).  I don't
think it's reasonable to expect somebody in Estonia to recognize that
"Colo" means "Colorado, USA", nor to recognize what those phone numbers
are.  The standard way of specifying a phone number in an internationally
useful way is a plus sign followed by the country code, followed by the
rest of the number with spaces delimiting the various parts (city or area
code, exchange, etc).  Thus, you would have done better to give your number
as "+1 719 632 4111", which would be interpreted as "do whatever you have
to do to get an international line, and then dial this number."  Note that
the "1" right after the "+" is the country code for the US and Canada (and
various Carribean islands) and has nothing to do with the "1" you probably
have to dial for long distance inside the US.
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"My karma ran over my dogma"