  Well,  I don't know if it's just me, but innumerable  hell  has 
been  flying about the the tri-chat area as I see it.  The  three 
boards  involved  are  namely, Cheers,  CyberChat,  and  Imperial 
Fortress,  alphabetically  to avoid favoritism. Does  the  debate 
range  further  than  these three  boards?  Undoubtedly.  I  hear 
references  about the chaos on the Iron Cross BBS, and  I'm  sure 
there's  others.  But to alleviate any brain strain on  my  part, 
these are the only three that I shall deal with, and in the  end, 
the  only three that will feel the full out repercussions of  the 
conflict.

  Indeed,  I  am a reporter (you can read me  bi-monthly  in  the 
Forked River Gazette... hey, ya gotta start somewhere), and as  I 
view  more and more, I must admit a conservative reporter, and  I 
often I find myself drawn into highly inflammatory,  opinionated, 
conflicts and find it necessary to contribute my two cents.

  Anyone  who knows me from my Commodore days, (few  will),  will 
acknowledge  my  methods  especially with mention  of  the  Final 
Frontier  BBS. It was on this board I began to  'come  outspoken, 
openly defying the sysop, Joe Irving, though pointing out to  him 
that  I  had NOT violated any of his rules, and if he  wished  to 
suspend me would have to either wait until I did break one of his 
rules, or change those rules. 

  Invariably,  coupled  with  many a  personal  issue  that  came 
between  us, Joe began to dislike me a great deal, BUT, he  never 
deleted me. Often I'd push the envelope, bending to rules so  far 
as  to  nearly break, and Joe would just watch  them  fall  right 
back. I knew, and he knew, that he was waiting for that one slip, 
that  tiny, accidental slip, which we knew I would make,  for  no 
one, not even I, is perfect, and he would suspend me. 

  Well,  that day came. Used to the chat network method  of  also 
calling  people by their real names, as well as their handles,  I 
blurbed someone's name accidentally on the Final Frontier, which, 
there, is against the rules, and -=<poof>=- I was gone. I finally 
broke  the rules, and Joe deleted me. It may sound rash, but  you 
must  realize the extents that I had pushed him, and yet  how  we 
both  maintained  as  separate individuals on  the  board,  never 
bringing  into contact our interpersonal problems. He  had  every 
right  to  do  what  he did, and in light  of  recent  events,  I 
actually  respect him for having waited so long. Despite  what  I 
might  think of him personally, (which, in reality, I don't  know 
what  I think :) ), he has show some of the greatest  sysoping  I 
have ever seen.

  But,  return  we  now to the topic at hand. It  all  starts,  I 
suppose,  at Cheers, though I knew nothing of the  system  before 
CyberChat  went  up just over a year ago. It would seem,  to  the 
uninvolved eye, which is how all eyes SHOULD be on a BBS or  chat 
system,  that  there  was  a  distinct  conflict  in  the   upper 
management of the system. I've always been an advocate of no more 
than 1 sysop and at most 2 co-sysops on any system. Not that,  if 
the  sysop  desires should only he and two others  have  complete 
"sysop level" access to the system, certainly the programmer, and 
any other staff should be able to receive the access they need to 
carry  out their duties, BUT there should only be a maximum of  3 
people  who have the final word on the goings on of  the  system. 
And  even  more, the sysop is the one who should have  the  FINAL 
word. Things such as deletions, suspensions, ect, should only  be 
able to be carried out by the sysop and with ample notice to  the 
user. Also, the sysop should be available for conference with the 
user should he or she question why his access was altered.  Well, 
this is where the problems began.

  It seems that the sysop of Cheers, Malone, actually had a life, 
or at least something that took up his time, and was unable to do 
the  duties  a sysop should, especially a chat  system  sysop.  A 
regular  system operator of your standard message base and  email 
bulletin  board  system  would do fine to only check  in  on  his 
system  three  or  four times a week, but  with  a  chat  system, 
everything  is sped up to the point where if the sysop  does  not 
spend  at least a few hours a day responding to his email, he  is 
very soon left out of his own system. This, unfortunately  befell 
Malone.  And  instead  of allowing himself to  be  recognized  as 
merely  the owner of the system, and promote someone else to  the 
sysop position, Malone simply added a CO-sysop... or five. I  can 
see,  Malone's  wishes to be recognized as the  provider  of  the 
service,  but  he just didn't have the ability.  He  should  have 
known  that  people  DO place some respect in  the  owners  of  a 
system, even if they never meet them, for does not everyone thank 
General  Electric  at least a little bit, for owning NBC  and  in 
turn  providing David Letterman with the ability to entertain  us 
every  night?  ( Or at least, having provided? ) Well,  it  seems 
Malone  may  have  learned his lesson, now  his  name  no  longer 
appears  on the Cheers log-on screen and Bhawk is  now  seemingly 
system operator. We shall see what becomes of this.

  But  again, it is not the present, but the recent past this  is 
here  to discuss, more aptly, the new spawn into the chat  realm, 
The  Imperial Fortress (TIF). Where did they come from?  How  did 
they get there? And most importantly, why? For this, we will have 
to  step  back  to  what I spoke  of  about  the  "problems  with 
upper-management" at Cheers.

  It would seem that at least four, if not all (co)sysops of  TIF 
were  at one time cosysops of Cheers. The exact reasons  why  the 
split  has  occurred  I am not totally sure of, as  I  know  many 
aren't, but I'll get to THAT in a second.

  The  greatest complaints, and thereby justifications for  their 
succession,  were  that Malone was never around for them  or  the 
system,  and he never expressed enough thanks for their  work  on 
the system. There is also a claim that Malone would often spy  in 
on  "private" chats and other such things that he should  not  be 
doing. Well, foremost, I must reply to the accusation that Malone 
spied  in  on  private  conversations. I  have  been  BBSing  for 
innumerable years at this point, and as I recall, EVERY system  I 
have  ever logged on to has had a message proclaiming  "there  is 
no such thing as private [conferencing] on this system. The sysop 
reserves  the right to look at [anything private]". So,  on  this 
point, if he did do this, the immoral, and I myself would find it 
offensive, he has every right. Every user agreed to let him do so 
once they signed onto the system.

  The  other  points  of  argument I  find  just  silly,  if  not 
justified.  As  I said, with Malone never being  around  for  the 
system, that was his folly, and perhaps he should have been  more 
caring about what went on with it, but he wasn't. (Though  Malone 
was always available to me when I needed to talk to him, and many 
times (no offense) wanted to talk to me even when I didn't. :)  ) 
In turn, Malone left the operation of the system up to his,  what 
should truly be acknowledged by any BBSer,  CO-the-real-sysop-is-
busy-so-tell-me-your-problems-SYSOPS, so him not being there  for 
the  system was not necessarily a problem. 

  And  the complaint of not enough thanks. First.  complaints  of 
him never being there, and then of him not giving enough  thanks. 
How  could he give thanks if he was never there? And what  indeed 
did  they want? President Clinton does not turn around after  the 
head  of  congress settles a debate and thank him for  doing  his 
job,  but he still does it. Lee Iacocca does not turn around  and 
kiss  the hand of the thirty second to the left rivet  welder  in 
the assembly line every time he welds another rivet, but he still 
does  his job. I know these are extreme, but it's the way  it  is 
people,  get  a  grip. Some people just don't say  thank  you  so 
easily.  And it wasn't really Malone you were doing a  favor,  it 
was US, the users, and I haven't said thank you either. You going 
to boycott me too?

  And  finally, I've seen innumerable people on  Cheers,  sysops, 
users, people who never met him, tear apart Malone for reasons  I 
know  not. I've never had a problem with him, everyone I've  ever 
talked to who did not put him down have never had a problem  with 
him, but it is these people who did put him down who claim,  "Oh, 
you'll never understand," and then they never even offer to  tell 
us, to give us the chance to TRY and understand. I still maintain 
personal problems should be kept off the BBS, for example, of the 
many reasons I was disliked so by Joe Irving was due to the  fact 
I  dated his sister, once "stole" his girlfriend, and then  later 
dated  a second of his girlfriends (this one an ex), and yet  all 
of this we succeeded in keeping off of the Frontier. To the folks 
at  Cheers, I assume this is a foreign concept. As I am  fond  of 
saying, be it the only phrase I can recall from my 2 semesters of 
college French, it applies, C'est comma ca. (That is how it is.)

  Now, one other topic must be addressed here, and that is of the 
forwarding  lines. You may or may not know that I used to be  the 
home  of the Toms River area forwarding line to Cheers. Come  the 
day  of  the birth of TIF, I called my local Lakewood  number  to 
contact Cheers, and low and behold, I contacted TIF. Well,  after 
a bit of thought I decided to disconnect the forwarding line that 
I had. (The Toms River forwarding line forwarded to the  Lakewood 
line,  which  in turn, forwarded to Cheers.) Malone  paid  me  to 
forward  the  calls  to Cheers, not to TIF, and so  I  was  under 
contract,  albeit  a verbal one, to either forward  the  269-4549 
number  to  Cheers,  or, as I chose, to not forward  it  at  all. 
Though  the situation involving my line is not at issue, but  all 
the  lines. A user on Cheers and TIF symbolized the split as  the 
early  colonists  breaking away from England and  her  tyrannical 
rule,  but, as I pointed out, the colonists had given  notice  to 
Mother  England in the form of the Declaration  Of  Independence, 
that which TIF did not bestow upon Cheers. No, in my eyes, a more 
equal  symbol would be the south breaking from the north and  the 
Civil War, neither side was necessarily correct, but they did  it 
without  style, and without warning. Many users of Cheers  called 
their local numbers to find TIF spontaneously in its stead.  What 
were the users to do about the money they paid to Cheers? I quote 
an anonymous source (simply, I can't remember who said it) on TIF 
(not,  mind you, a sysop) who said, "They are shit out of  luck." 
The TIF's staff's position was more kind, though not  necessarily 
giving  either as they simply said, "Cheers is still up, but  you 
can't  get there from here." As par the Germans response  to  the 
loss  of 3/4 of Berlin after World War II, "It's yours,  but  I'd 
like to see you get there."

  My  personal  opinion of TIF's usage of the  Cheers  forwarding 
lines for their own system, without posting warnings in  advance, 
without  simply  changing  the  numbers  used  to  dial,  without 
informing  people seeking Cheers in way of a system wide  message 
that they have NOT reached Cheers, is simply an acknowledgment of 
one  of  the oldest cons in the book, "bait and switch."  In  the 
same  parallel I've drawn for others, it is like filling a  Pepsi 
bottle with Coke and not telling the consumer of the switch until 
after  they have used and enjoyed the product. And then  offering 
them Coke, in a Coke bottle.

  To  this day, I am sure there are new users out  there  dialing 
(908)  905-2524 or some other such number in search of  what  was 
raved in the advertisement as "Cheers, a really great board,"  or 
some  such,  and getting TIF. Will they ever get what  they  were 
looking for? One may never know.

  Before wrapping up, where does CyberChat fit into all this?  It 
don't.  Surprisingly  CyberChat has been able to keep  it's  nose 
clean  of all of the chaos, despite it's happening in "their  own 
back  yard," and to this I offer them applause. This is the  kind 
of  attitude  displayed but that other board I hold  high,  Final 
Frontier.  With  that,  my only question is,  does  Hegz  have  a 
sister?

  Well, you choose the system you wish to call based on your  own 
opinions, not mine, which is all these were. Call, one, call two, 
or  if  you're a severe cyberspace junkie, call all  three.  Just 
remember,  BBSes are there for the users, and we call to talk  to 
other  users, not SYSOPS. Though the sysops are users,  and  when 
looked at in that light... 

                                        - IronHorse

  -=<Cheers>=- Sysop: Bhawk
  (908) 972-2387, (908) 727-2752, (908) 969-9360, (908) 360-1209
  (908) 303-0135, (609) 443-9008    Voice Support (908) 536-6985

  -=<CyberChat>=- Sysop: Hegz
  (908) 506-0610, (908) 506-7637, (908) 901-0762, (908) 363-8511
  (908) 308-3371                    Voice Support (908) 506-6651

  -=<The   Imperial   Fortress>=-   Sysops:   Pigpen,   ChooChoo, 
  Carl, Adagio
  (908) 972-1001, (908) 254-3175, (908) 525-9472, (908) 969-1866
  (908) 351-6149, (908) 308-4585, (908) 905-2524 No Voice Listed

  These  are the numbers as listed on the log-on screens  of  the 
respective systems, I am not responsible for their validity.
