SO, YOU WANT TO BE A SYSOP... Episode Two: The Sysop Who Shot Liberty Valence Written and directed by Leonard Richardson Sysop, Da Warren BBS & Grill (805) 854-2478 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DISCLAIMER: Put down this article at once! It is nothing but lies! Hello again, and welcome to the world of sysoping. For those who are new, in this column I'll be showing you the ins and outs of being a real sysop-- including all the stuff the books don't tell you , and be socially offensive at the same time. If you've got something to add, I can be contacted through Wildnet (leave me a message in the General Chat conference), NutNet (ditto, What's Up conference), or (theoretically) through Internet. My adress is leonard.richardson@the- edge.com. Alternatively, you can call Da Warren and leave me a comment, or page me. So, kids, gather once again around your uncle Leonard's knee and listen to him as he spins another tale of sysopery... When I started being a sysop, we had it tough. I had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to the micro- wave, and it was uphill both ways! We had to carve our modems out of wood! And if we wanted to do ANSIs, we had to use COPY CON with the screen off! Actually, that's not strictly true. I first started wanting to be a sysop in January 1993, about a week after I first started calling BBSes. Note that I was no stranger to telecommunications; I'd been on Prodigy for almost a year at that point. But BBSing was new to me. Anyway, I was calling BBSes, and after I'd given all the ones in my area a try, a thought occured to me. I recognized it as a "form thought" that I often have. It was: "Gee, a lot of these x are really cool, but none of them posesses the insanity and complete silliness that has the capacity to make me truly happy. I know! I'll my own!" In this case, x=BBSes and y=run. So, I started my BBS. It took me 6 months, but only because I was too lazy to go out and get a 14.4k modem. On June 23, 1993, Da Warren BBS took its first call. It's not really that hard to make your board good. Just make it your vision of the ideal board. It's no use in anticipating what other people want because you're usually wrong. Give them what you want, and if their tastes are at all similar to yours (my board appeals to the mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to- take-it-anymore crowd, who are looking for a board that's not afraid to break the rules), you'll have a hit. But what should I have on my BBS? you say. Should I have a lot of files? Doors? What? Well, too many message bases aren't a good idea. Most people who call your BBS want one thing and one thing only, and that's files. A good analogy is a singles bar. So, message-wise, you should start out small. I started with three conferences (Private Mail, The All-Purpose Conference, and The Silly Conference) and added more as the need arose. Should you join nets? Maybe. I'm not the person to ask on these matters. I didn't want to pay a fortune in long-distance bills so I started NutNet so that other people could pay a fortune in long-distance bills. What about doors? Well, again, I started small, but that wasn't intentional. I couldn't figure out how to set 'em up. Now I have almost 60, even though only a few of them are played on a regular basis. Oh well. As to files, I have a large files base (Well, fairly large) because that's what most people call for. (Note: If you'd like to tell you how to set up doors, sorry, I can't. There are too many ways and I only know one of them. I might share that in a later column, since I don't see how the others could be that different.) Should you have upload/download ratios? (Sysops, who have their own colorful jargon, call them u/l/d/l ratios or just ratios) Well, I don't, but that's because I don't put any limitations on my users except for time online. Plus, a lot of people would upload junk to beat the ratio and think they were clever for it. A lot of people do. If you're gonna run a pay BBS, I dunno. I have no experience with that sort of thing, but it sounds like a good idea if you want to get money out of people. I don't know if they'll pay, thought. I sure wouldn't. The most important modification I've made to my board is the keyboard extension that allows me to type from bed. This brings me to my next topic of discussion: COMFORT Why comfort? Why not contort, carport, or pillow fort? These are questions people don't ask me, but I wish they would because then I could laugh in their face and say "You pathetic little swine! Why do you people place so much emphasis on elegance when comfort is so much more important! You stuck-up scum sicken me!" And maybe belch in their face for emphasis. Not that I'd ever do that, of course. I'm much too polite. But it's true, too much of life is making sure things look good. The people who call your BBS can't see your computer room. If you function best in a mess like I do, fine. You don't have to clean up just for the sake of cleaning up. You're a sysop. You do't have to look good. You just have to BE good. If you're like me and you have your computer in your bedroom, rig up some way for you to type from bed (like I have). Half of all work-related stress could be eliminated if a cot or small bed were put in every worker's cubicle, where they could relax as they computed. It also brings the worker one step closer to sleep, thus stimulating creativity. So. Make your sysoping experience as comforting as possible. Making your computer room comfortable (and, consequently, more efficient) is part of it. But what should you wear during your sysoping excursions? This is actually a very serious question, so I have put together... THE SYSOP'S FASHION GUIDE (With thanks to Zeigler and Grossberger's "The Non- Runner's Book". Sysops are some of the world's greatest non-runners, by the way. You run a BBS, you don't have time to run anywhere else.) What should you wear? Well, that depends. A good rule of thumb is your oldest set of clothes that won't get you arrested for indecent exposure. I have seperate clothes for my sysoping activities. I call them my "Holy Robes of the Sysop." They consist of a pair of blue sweatpants and a ripped, stretched out, baggy light green T-shirt. I wash them about once every three weeks. You may want to wear something different. Shorts, mumus, loincloths, anything. Some people sysop totally nude! (Or at least they act like it.) Whatever makes you most comfortable. Should a sysop wear a bra? We'll ignore that question, clearly designed only to spark reader interest. Heavens knows we don't want that. What about watches? Get one with a lot of seemingly useless functions, like phone+ book. You can think up a million uses for them. How about hats? I personally shun all clothes more complicated than a T-shirt, shorts, and shoes, but my co-sysop likes beanies. Some sysops go for a bowler for that classical touch. Cowboy hats are popular among some sysops because of their ability to hold ten gallons of coffee. It all boils down to personal taste. So, you've got your clothes and you're ready to sysop. Wait! Eat a healthy meal first! You're gonna be in the computer room for quite a while, and you're going to need extra energy. But what should you eat? Well, the staple of the sysop diet is coffee (I don't drink coffee myself; I prefer cocoa). Some people go for the gourmet varieties, others just guzzle it. What else should you eat? Well, sandwiches are good. My favorite is hot roast beef and Swiss on a deli roll. Other good things are: instant noodle lunches, microwave ravioli, breakfast cereal. Things that don't require too much preperation. Vegetarian sysops eat stuff raw, straight from the garden. The one exception to the Sysop Diet is dinner. You should always have a healthy dinner. Low in fat, high in complex carbohydrates. And great tasting too. If you subscribe to Boardwatch, you can learn a new reciepe every month in John Dvorak's column. He does this as a public service for sysops. Along those lines, have you ever noticed how much alike Dvorak and Jack Rickard look? I suspect a conspiracy. Either way, Boardwatch is a great magazine to subscribe to. I especially enjoy Harley Hahn/ Wendy Murdocks' column. There's some way you can get it online your board too, much like this magazine. So, let's review. You've got your food, you've got your wardrobe, you've got your cusine, you've got your official journal of sysoping, you're ready to proceed to the next step: SETTING UP YOUR BOARD I can't help you much on the technical stuff, because every BBS software is different. You should be able to muddle through it, the toughest part will probably be the modem junk. I can't figure out modems, so don't look at me. If you're buying a new modem, you should get it at a smallish local place, so that you can call them and have them walk you through setting it up. However, I can give you some general tips. GET A CO-SYSOP. Running a BBS solo is heck. It's not much better with a co-sysop, but at least you have someone to plot strategy with. My co-sysop also hunts around for files ad uploads them, and that's a nice bonus. Who should you pick? I dunno. I suggest you cut them in from the very beginning, whoever it is. Make sure it's someone you can trust. Screw the equal opportunity laws. It might be a good idea, if you're both single and you've both got apartments, to ditch one and move in as roomates. You'd both be able to see the whole picture, and you wouldn't have to keep explaining technical things to your co-sysop over the phone. I hate that. MODIFY YOUR DISPLAY SCREENS. Default menus and display screens mark your BBS of an out-of-the-box sysyem. You want to make your users remember your board as something special. Make some original menus and display screens. I can't stress this enough, mainly because I lack the ability. Get THEDRAW and modify them screens! I myself spent 6 months modifying my display screens (because, as mentioned above, I was too lazy to get a modem. Sometimes laziness can be a good thing. Just goes to show you.) CHOOSE A SPIFFY BOARD NAME. I can't stress this enough either. Don't pick something like "The Dark Castle BBS." There must have been 300 Dark Castles in the 15-year history of BBSing. Or "The End of the Rope BBS". Any cliche for that matter. It probably hasn't been used that many times, but all cliche BBS names sound the same. You want something that'll stand out in the crowd. Or maybe you don't. I'm not one to judge. Anyway, you should pick something that reflects the theme of your BBS. If you're running a game-related BBS, a name like The Monopoly Board would be cool. For general-purpose BBSes, anything goes. Somethig about you would be good. If you're left-handed you could call it "The Left-Hander's BBS," and if you're not you could call it that anyway and make people think you were. Some other names that I've thought up (every sysop has, just ask any other sysop and you'll get two or three potetial board names) are: Zany-du, 's and 's Excellent BBS, or The Comfy Chair BBS. ADVERTISE! Make a spiffy ASCII or ANSI ad and upload it to all the local boards AFTER your board is ready to run. This'll mean a pause of about 18 hours before anyone calls, but it'll stop people from calling before you're ready. So, are you ready to start up your board? Or should you wait another month for my next column? AN IDEA "You've got your BBS," said Stephen Leary, who works at a local computer store, "now what do you do?" "Run it," I said. Next Month: Dealing with problem users. Many users are annoying, but only a few are serioius problems. I'll be telling you what to do about them, or, if you're a problem user, how to avoid detection. THIS MONTH'S USELESS FACT: IS SYSOPING MORAL? It's a scenario I've seen time and time again. You want to start a BBS, but you're not sure your religion says it's OK. After all, there's not one word about sysoping in any scripture, right? Actually, the Bible does mention sysops. The problem is that in the old days, they shortened "sysop" to "sop." Without that little-known fact, sysoping will naturally be condemned by televangelists, censors, and other professional moralists. So: John 13:26. "Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon." If this fails to convince you, simply take a look at the tremendous number of BBSes with Christian themes. On the other hand, take a look at what those Christians up in Ireland are doing to each other. And with that I am forcibly dragged away by the editor.