The 30 Commandments of BBSing It has finally happened. Some very intelligent SysOp gave some great thought as to how a BBS should be operated and came up with these Commandments. We would be very remiss if We kept these from you, so here they are: 1. Thou shalt love thy BBS with all thy heart and all thy bytes. 2. Thou shalt remember thy name and thy password. 3. Thou shalt not POST IN ALL CAPS! 4. Thou shalt use your real name when required. 5. Thou shalt call a BBS no more than three times a day. 6. Honor thy SysOp. 7. Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's password, nor his or her real name, computer, software, nor any other thing belonging to him or her. 8. Thou shalt not post messages that are stupid, worthless, or have no meaning. 9. Thou shalt use the English language properly. 10. Thou shalt spell thy words correctly. 11. Thou shalt delete thine own mail. 12. Thou shalt delete thine olden messages. 13. Thou shalt help others users. 14. Thou shalt not post anonymously when offering criticism. 15. Thou shalt keep thy extremely foul language to thyself. 16. Thou shalt not occupy thy BBS with thine arguments, for verily, I say unto thee that thou shalt maketh a fool of thyself. 17. Woe be unto the user who attempt to crash thy BBS, for he or she shalt be cast out from the sanctuary of thy hobby and must repent by doing 40 days and 40 nights of penance in voice-only communications. 18. Thou shalt first dial BBS number during the day by way of voice line to assure the correct number. 19. Thou shalt not post other users' real names. 20. Thou shalt not post messages while drunk. 21. Thou shalt confine thy messages to those of friendship, requests for assistance, aid to the needy, advice, and advancement of thy hobby; and thou art obligated to repel any who wouldst transgress upon those commandments. 22. If thou doth promise to reply to a message and thou doth not, then surely thou shalt spill coffee into thy keyboard and burn out thy central processing chip. 23. Thou shalt not giveth any false information when applying for membership to thy BBS, for verily it is written that whosoever shall do so will surely be found out and thy welcome on all boards will be thus denied forever and ever. 24. Thou shalt log on properly and in accordance with the SysOp's rules. 25. Thou shalt observe BBS time limits. 26. Thou shalt not upload "worm" or "virus" programs. 27. Thou shalt not ask stupid questions that are already fully explained in the BBS instructions. 28. Thou shalt not exchange copyrighted software thru the BBS. 29. Thou shalt not violate applicable state/federal/local laws and regulations affecting BBS telecommunications, or thy will face the wrath of the judicial system. 30. Thou shalt not hack. Ethics for BBS users - By Steve King The following are a few points of general BBS etiquette. If you wish to maintain your welcome on whatever system you happen to call, it would be to your advantage to observe these few rules. (Sysops - feel free to download this & display it on your BBS) 1. Don't habitually hang up on a system. Every Sysop is aware that accidental disconnections happen once in a while but we do tend to get annoyed with people who hang up every single time they call because they are either too lazy to terminate properly or they labor under the mistaken assumption that the 10 seconds they save online is going to significantly alter their phone bill. "Call Waiting" is not an acceptable excuse for long. If you have it and intend to use the line to call BBS systems, you should either have it disconnected or find some other way to circumvent it. 2. Don't do dumb things like leave yourself a message that says "Just testing to see if this thing works". Where do you think all those other messages came from if it didn't work? Also, don't leave whiney messages that say "Please leave me a message". If ever there was a person to ignore, it's the one who begs someone to leave him a message. If you want to get messages, start by reading the ones that are already online and getting involved in the conversations that exist. 3. Don't use the local equivalent of a chat command unless you really have some clear cut notion of what you want to say and why. Almost any Sysop is more than happy to answer questions or offer help concerning his system. Unfortunately, because about 85% of the people who call want to chat and about 99% of those people have absolutely nothing to say besides "How old are you?" or something equally irrelevant, fewer Sysops even bother answering their pagers every day. 4. When you are offered a place to leave comments when exiting a system, don't try to use this area to ask the Sysop questions. It is very rude to the other callers to expect the Sysop to carry on a half visible conversation with someone. If you have a question or statement to make and expect the Sysop to respond to it, it should always be made in the section where all the other messages are kept. This allows the Sysop to help many people with the same problem with the least amount of effort on his part. 5. Before you log on with your favorite pseudonym, make sure that handles are allowed. Most Sysops don't want people using handles on the system. There is not enough room for them, they get silly games of one-upmanship started, it is much nicer to deal with a person on a personal basis, and last but not least, everyone should be willing to take full responsibility for his actions or comments instead of slinging mud from behind a phony name. 6. Take the time to log on properly. There is no such place as RIV, HB, ANA or any of a thousand other abbreviations people use instead of their proper city. You may think that everyone knows what RIV is supposed to mean, but every BBS has people calling from all around the country and I assure you that someone from Podunk, Iowa has no idea what you're talking about. 7. Don't go out of your way to make rude observations like "Gee, this system is slow". Every BBS is a tradeoff of features. You can generally assume that if someone is running a particular brand of software, that he is either happy with it or he'll decide to find another system he likes better. It does nobody any good when you make comments about something that you perceive to be a flaw when it is running the way the Sysop wants it to. Constructive criticism is somewhat more welcome. If you have an alternative method that seems to make good sense then run it up the flagpole. 8. When leaving messages, stop and ask yourself whether it is necessary to make it private. Unless there is some particular reason that everyone shouldn't know what you're saying, don't make it private. We don't call them PUBLIC bulletin boards for nothing, folks. It's very irritating to other callers when there are huge blank spots in the messages that they can't read and it stifles interaction between callers. 9. If your favorite BBS has a time limit, observe it. If it doesn't, set a limit for yourself and abide by it instead. Don't tie up a system until it finally kicks you off and then call back with another name. This same rule applies to downloading or playing games. Only one person at a time can be logged on to a BBS and it isn't fair to everyone else if you overstay your welcome. Remember, a BBS is best when it can be left wide open. If you try and cheat the rules you just hurt everybody by forcing the Sysop to adopt more stringent policies. I can't count the number of systems that are now locked tighter than a drum because of people who cheat and abuse. 10. Don't call a BBS just to look at the list of other BBS numbers. Most especially don't call a system as a new user and run right to the other numbers list. There is probably very little that's more annoying to any Sysop than to have his board completely passed over by you on your way to another board. 11. Have the common courtesy to pay attention to what passes in front of your face. When a BBS displays your name and asks "Is this you?", don't say yes when you can see perfectly well that it is misspelled. Also, don't start asking questions about simple operation of a system until you have thoroughly read all of the instructions that are available to you. I assure you that it isn't any fun to answer a question for the thousandth time when the answer is prominently displayed in the system bulletins or instructions. Use some common sense when you ask your questions. The person who said "There's no such thing a...
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