🚀 go-pugleaf

I am the BBS/online service reviewer for MicroTimes, one of the Bay Area
computer publications.  I mostly (but not exclusively) write about Bay
Area BBSs.

ere have been two BBS lists floating around Bay Area BBSs for quite some
time.  I have been advised that the problem with trying to maintain even
*lists* is that it is a *lot of work* to keep them up to date.  What
comes up often comes down.  So it seems pointless to do all the hard work
of a review and maintain review lists *on any scale*.

But I do have a work-around.  I am going to bring up a central information
BBS (by renting space on someone else's board) to store my reviews for
download (and they are mine, folks--if they've been copied, it's without
my permission), to gateway the Usenet BBS newsgroups, and to set up a
couple of local message areas for *non-technical* discussions of the
virtual world.  Unfortunately, I am mostly unemployed right now and can't
afford even the small charge this board will cost me, so I've had to put
it off until I can support it financially.

So you might consider doing the same thing in Seattle--it would act as a
central database, and you could, of course, add anything you wanted to
your downloads (with permissions, of course).  And miscellaneous lists
will find their way to you if you let people know you're looking for them.
Just today someone sent me a *huge* list of national religious BBSs,
supposedly updated 7/12/92.  And there are other people who maintain
lists of specific types of BBSs--I know someone maintains a list of
medical/health/EMT BBSs.  You'll find these things once you start looking
for them.

Just a thought.
-- 
Kathleen Creighton                     {pacbell,hplabs,apple,ucbvax}!well!casey
San Francisco                          casey@well.sf.ca.us
       Just another annoyingly devoted Akita owner

>You know, I've seen a lot of BBS lists out there that give the name, the phone
>number, the line settings, and *maybe* a word or two of the subject matter,
>flavor, or what have you.  But I have *never* seen a competent list out there
>which actually discusses the board at all, or reviews it, or critiques it, or
>competently lists anything about it.
>
>I am willing to compile such a catalog...

Well, theoretically it sounds like a good idea (if I understand what you're
intending to do), but in all practicality, to list half of the BBSs in the
United States alone, just the names and numbers, would probably take several
gigabytes of space.

There is a directory out there that I've seen that is somewhat what you're
talking about. It only lists MUDs (multi-user role-playing games on Internet
sites usually), but it describes them all in a paragraph. It only has about
100 listed, and it takes up several kilobytes.

One suggestion I have is to work out a questionnaire type of file, which
has questions for all the info you want to compile, then post messages on
here asking to have one or two people from every are code to help you --
what they do is this: you give them a copy of this questionnaire file, 
and they fill it out for all the BBSs in their area code. They send them
back to you and you put it all together in one big list, sorted alphabet-
ically in area codes, then sorted alphabetically by city or something (or
area code if you want, it doesn't matter so long as it's sorted somehow).
You then make this big list a crunched file (zip, lharc, pak, zoo, etc)
available to everyone in the world (i.e., upload it to SDSs on every net
you can get to so that they will distribute it throughout their nets).

Presto, everyone can download your humongous BBS list to see your nifty
descriptions about all the BBSs across the land.

Of course, I could be interpreting your message all wrong...and you have
no intention of doing anything I just spent 10 minutes writing... :)

In article 92Jul23155001@bike.rad.washington.edu, mcglk@bike.rad.washington.edu (Ken McGlothlen) writes:
>You know, I've seen a lot of BBS lists out there that give the name, the phone
>number, the line settings, and *maybe* a word or two of the subject matter,
>flavor, or what have you.  But I have *never* seen a competent list out there
>which actually discusses the board at all, or reviews it, or critiques it, or
>competently lists anything about it.
>
>I am willing to compile such a catalog, as long as *I* don't have to pay any
>long-distance charges.  I can write up reviews for the Seattle area, but I'm
>willing to collect them from any area, neaten up the reviews, and stick them in
>an FTP directory somewhere.  I'd prefer to do this with as little actual work
>(i.e., dialing out) as I can possibly get away with.  :)
>
>Does this sound good to anyone, or does it seem unnecessary?  Personally, I'd
>love to see one out there, but. . . .

The idea of having a Internet accesible place to d/l information about BBSes all
accross the country does sound promising.  However, maintaining reviews and the
like could prove to be a monster task - no matter how much you could manage to 
streamline the process.

You may be able to get something going by simply collecting regional BBS lists
and making them available for ftp.  I know of very few area codes/regions that
don't have a defacto-standard BBS list that is available.  For example, in the
Washington DC area, Mike Focke has been distributing his list for quite some time -
and it is THE definitive BBS list for the area.  There are similar lists all over
the place - which don't really contain reviews, but rather snippets of data like
baud rate, BBS SW, mail nets, file area descriptions, charges, etc...

Now there are a couple NATIONAL BBS lists around, Darwin's comes to mind, but
that seems too massive - and the accuracy of the information tends to be a few
months (or more) behind.  Maintaining a national list is very tough!  There is
also THE BBS LIST that has been floating around USENET that contains about 300
numbers - but again there is no validation done here as far as number accuracy,
old BBSes, etc... [Note: Darwin lists about 40 BBSes in the DC area, Focke's
regional list has nearly 400!  This is why regional lists may be the way to
go...]

Your best bet, as I see it, is to collect regional BBS lists on a regular
basis, and make those ftp-able.  The main plus is that the regional lists tend
to be very accurate as to expired numbers, new numbers, etc...  Another nice touch
would be to setup a MAGIC-WORD on your machine so that folks can request lists
through the mail!  Ex:

	From: New.User@somewhere.org
	to:   BBS.LIST@cpac.washington.edu
	Subject: SEND 410
	
That would tell your machine to send "Joe User" the appropriate list(s) for area
code 410...

Good luck,
Howie

PS -> Be sure to post here if you think up a master plan :-)  I'll help you
get ahold of the Baltimore/Washington area lists!