
                SO YOU WANT TO BE A SYSOP?
                       by Wally Byczek                                   
                       WallyWorld BBS 1989                            

     To start a BBS, you first need a computer. No matter what computer 
you currently have, it won't be large enough or powerful enough for what you    
intend to do. And since you can't take the board down (unless you run a      
kiddy board that bounces up and down or runs only between the time           
school lets out and Daddy comes home) to do your own work, you will need     
another computer that you can ill afford. Next you have to find a BBS        
software package. This can take months, or you can write your own if you     
are so inclined. This can take years. Next, unless you are starting a        
kiddy board, you will need a phone line other than the one that you          
normally converse on. Depending on the Telco's mood, personnel, and the      
imminence of a strike, this could be done in as little as 2 weeks or it      
may never happen. Next, if you plan to run doors on your board, you must     
now spend long distance dollars in scouring other boards for evaluation and  
aquisition of these games. Naturally, your external file protocols don't     
come with your BBS software, so you have to again scour the countryside to   
find them. Utilities for your BBS are also an after thought and have to      
be obtained in a similar fashion. All of these external programs have to     
be registered after a while, since most stop working after a while or have   
an annoying feature about them until they are registered. All of the above   
items take money! and plenty of it!                                          
                                                                             
     While we are on the subject of money, you must obtain a modem. Whatever  
modem you currently have will not be supported by the BBS software. This     
is some sort of unwritten law pertaining to writing communication software.  
Be prepared to open your wallet wide. No, your old Hayes 300 won't be good   
enough. People even hate 1200 baud these days, and the teenagers seem to     
have USR HST's these days and will complain vociferously if they can't       
access you at 14.4.                                                          
                                                                             
        Now you pick a name for your BBS. Whatever you choose will be            
ridiculed by 20% of those who see it. Another 50% will offer suggestions     
that are worse than the one you chose. The remaining 30% won't care.         
                                                                             
     Next comes the wonderful task of installing your board. You have 
your machine. If you just bought it, that means formatting your hard disk,       
installing DOS, and ASNI drivers and Lord knows what else that you need      
for your board. If you already have the machine, you may as well go ahead    
and reformat it anyway. Something will guarantee that you will have to       
do this before you are done.                                                 
        
     The manual for the BBS software was most likely written by the author's 10
year old and was mimeographed. It got wet in the mail and smeared as well, so at
least 30% of the manual will be physically useless. The rest is just
procedurally useless.                              
                                                                             
     Next comes the fun task of deciding on your board structure. Who can do     
what and when can they do it. You must design your menus and opening screens.
You have to get a pretty good stock of files, because no one will upload to  
you unless you have something there for them to take first. (not that it     
matters, I suppose, since even if you DO have files, they won't upload       
much anyway.)                                                                
                                                                             
     Next comes the security aspect. You can leave your board wide open so that  
users with the name of Benny Beanfart, Dr. Rape, Crack, Hack, File Attack,   
DR DEATH, etc can come in and do anything they like. Or, you can lock it     
up so tight that no one will call. There is no compromise on this.           
                                                                            
     Next you must build events or prepare to live at your keyboard. A BBS
HAS to be backed up. If you can't afford a high density backup medium such as   
tape or cartridge, you will spend many many hours per week flipping          
floppies. Events are designed to allow the sysop the luxury of having the    
board do routine tasks at odd hours by itself- Backups, purges and so on.    
These never work as they come and will have to be extensively modified by    
you. And since they generally only run at 3 AM, you will have to be awake    
to see just how they die and then try to fix it.                             
                                                                             
        Alright... the big day is here. Your board is ready, your modem is
ready, Telco finally hooked you up, and then you start up. This is when after 2  
days of no one calling, despite your ad in computer shopper and having       
placed your number on every other BBS in existance, you discover that the    
init strings for the modem are wrong. You discover this by calling yourself  
from a friends' home. This takes calls to the author of the software, the    
manufacturer of the modem and finally gets resolved by asking another sysop  
how to do it.                                                                
                                                                            
     Oh Boy! Now we're in business! During your first caller's visit, someone    
will hit a telephone pole and you will lose power. Naturally, since the      
board is new, you didn't back it up. The power surge when the electricity    
was restored roached your hard disk. Go back to low level formating...       
                                                                             
     Finally, you're up and working. After about a week of gleefully seeing      
someone call, you will encounter Benny Beanfart or his ilk. He will leave    
public posts (always in caps and terribly mis-spelled) about what a really   
lousey board this is and that the sysop is a three eyed twit. You            
automaticly kill his account. But do you leave the message for the world     
to see? hmmm... dilemma number 1. Killing Benny does no good because he      
will be back with another account such as SYSOP SUX or some such thing.      
Eventually he will tire of the game and go away, but he has given ideas to   
of his friends who will also visit you sometime in the next week.         
                                                                             
     Then you will be visited by the "smart kid" who can tell you everything     
that's wrong with your machine, your software, etc. It doesn't matter that   
he's calling you on a Timex Sinclair. He knows more about your 386 than      
Intel.                                                                       
                                                                             
     By now, your name has spread around. Probably, if you are in Worcester,     
the college kids have your name and number. If it is Spetember or January    
you are in trouble. You will probably be bombarded with file requests for    
commercial software. Some will assist you by uploading Lotus 123 ver 3 that  
has the copy-proofing removed. Whoever uploads this to you will then call    
Lotus Development Corp and tell them that you have a pirated version on your 
board (anonymously of course)                                                
                                                                             
     If you imposed an upload/download ratio such that users must upload one
file to get x numbers of files in return, then you will recieve 2K text files
from them. They will download 2Mb of Gif files in return.                        

                                                                            
     By now, you are disappointed with your message bases. You perhaps have (if
you are fortunate) two or three users who post messages outside of private mail.
These three users are symbionts who, if one of their number does not call    
for 2 weeks, will not post because they miss their friend. Your message      
bases will starve. You set up many areas for messages, all carefully listed  
by topic. No public post will ever go into the area that it should be in.    
You will find a raunchy joke posted in the Bible topics area, technical      
questions asked in the political opinion area, and a message from one of     
Benny Beanfart's croney's in the technical section.                          
                                                                            
                                                                             
     You will next encounter the user who can't do anything right. He will make  
you feel terribly guilty that you are running this system that seems to      
rudely exclude him from enjoying it, because he cannot master the concept    
that M means Message, F means Files, D means download etc. He DOES however   
know how to leave comments to the sysop.                                     
                                                                            
                                                                             
     At first you will be responsive to all the user complaints and will make   
a valiant effort to obtain the special game that was requested as a door.    

     You discover it on a board in the Fiji Islands and the off peak call cost   
you 32 dollars to download it. You find then that the game was written for   
a board other than the BBS that you run. You search the countryside for a    
conversion interface. You find one in Omaha. add another 40 dollars in       
phone bills from the search. You discover now that the game must be registere
with the author. This is another 69 dollars. You discovered this because     
after the game was installed, you called from a friend's house to test it.   
You find out that while the console looks wonderful while it is being run,  
the user sees a screen that informs him that the sysop is a cheap bum who  
didn't even bother to register this wonderful piece of software. Since the   
sysop is such a creep, why do you call there? Naturally, you register it so  
the annoyance screen goes away. After it has been on the board for 2 months 
you discover that only 1 person ever used it and he only went in there once,
dropped carrier and hung up the board because you later discovered that this 
"wonderful" piece of software doesn't monitor carrier. Do you now register  
Watchdog so this won't happen again or do you just scrap the game?           
                                                                             
     The work load is getting heavy on the board. Wow! It takes at least 2 hours 
per day to stay up with things. Answering mail, hunting down Benny Beanfart's
latest account, changing screens, moving messages back to the areas that     
they truely belong in, adding new things, paying Telco, arguing with your    
spouse etc. You decide to get a co-sysop to help out.  He will pay little 
attention to the needs of the board, but WILL experiment with things like    
remote drop to dos. hehehehe! I think this needs little elaboration.        
                                                                             
     By now, you are conversant with the many user complaints. WHY aren't you    
around to answer the sysop page at 2:45 AM? Why does your message editor     
use A for abort instead of Q for quit? How come there aren't any nice ANSI   
screens? How come these crummy ANSI screens slow down the board? Why can't   
I stay online for 3 hours at a time? Why can't my C64 see your graphics.. It 
must be your crummy board! I never post messages because no one else ever   
does! What do you mean you killed my upload of Dbase IV? I did upload        
something a year ago.. so how come I can't download more than 100 files now? 
How come my friend has access level 50 and I only have level 40? Boy.. do you
have a bad attitude! I think the Silicon Sarcophagus is 100 times better than
this board! This is a free country.. I can say ANYTHING I want in public    
messages. What are you.. Hitler or something? How come nobody ever send me  
mail? I used a bit editor on Procomm and now it won't work.. tell me how to 
fix it. That GIF file I downloaded didn't run... this stinks... you really  
must be a lousey sysop if you don't check to see that it would work for me. 
                                                                           
     Then you will discover the wonders of sysop to user interactive chat. You   
will find this to be a most opportune time to get things done. Since the    
majority of users who will page you into chat type at about .000001 baud,   
you can have a conversation with the user and get things done like mowing   
the lawn, making a three course meal, and cleaning out the garage before     
the user has stated his request. Generally, the chat request was for       
something such as How do I get out of a file listing or something similar    
that is well covered in the user manual that you have both as a file for     
downloading and as a bulletin for online reading.                          
                                                                             
     One admonition is to not get angry about carrier drop by the user. Remember 
that the user is calling you through the telco. Chances are that no matter  
how malicious or inept the user may be, the telco probably did it anyway.   
                                                                             
     Next comes BBS software upgrade time! Such fun! You will find that the      
author no longer supports your version. You have to upgrade. This means     
once again opening your wallet. The new version will not have the same       
reserved file names, nor will the file structures be the same. The author    
generously supplies you with a conversion program. This program is designed  
to assist you in making all the little changes needed to perform the upgrade.
It will automatically convert your file names and structures. There are two  
type of these programs. One that requires that you have 5Mb more free space  
than you do, and the other that will abort half way through the conversion 
because of a bad disk sector read and didn't have a corresponding error     
trap. Of the two, the latter is the more catastrophic, because now your data 
can't be read by either version of the software.                           
                                                                          
     Since you successfully upgraded your software, you now discover what the   
word Beta Site really means..                                               
                                                                             
      Now since you've done so well to this point, it's time for the hardware to
find something to compensate for all this good effort. Generally, the        
hard drive controller is the most likely device to make this decision to    
fail. It will not however abruptly die. It will instead, gradually mis-write 
to disk over a period of several days before deciding not to work at all     
anymore. This has the advantage that your last backups will be no good at   
all once you replace the controller and reformat the drive.                  
                                                                          
        HeHeHE Still want to be a sysop?

