Text 21507, 76 rader
Skriven 2011-07-30 12:03:34 av North American Backbone (1:123/456)
Ärende: The Fidonews
====================
Hello All!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
======================

After much thought and deliberation, the North American Backbone in
cooperation with several concerned sysops have opted to take the
following course of action, for reasons that will be outlined further
down:

* Björn Felten for all practical intents and purposes is no longer
  considered the editor of the FIDONEWS and moderator of the echo of the
  same name. Anyone care to make reference to former fidonews editors who
  were replaced without choosing their replacement?  Like Sylvia Maxwell,
  Chris Baker or Doug Myers?

* Distribution of the version of Fidonews produced by Björn Felten will
  be blocked but would be available directly from his system.

* The FIDONEWS echo will be limited to Zone One plus invited guests, with
  distribution to be re-expanded later. All other zones will be read only.

* The new FIDONEWS editor will be Gary Perkins currently nodelisted at
  1:1/1.

* To avoid the mistakes of the past, the Fidonews editor will have
  moderator authority in the Fidonews echo but it wont be a primary
  responsibility, this will allow him to concentrate on the Fidonews.

Why is this change being done?

First and foremost, as editors go, Björn Felten was a very technically
competent editor as any, if Fidonews editors were measured on technical
competence alone, there would be no issue with Björn and he could be
listed in the top echelons of all Fidonews editors. But....

Since assuming the editorship, the status of being the Fidonews editor
has turned out to be more important to Mr Felten than the actual
product itself. Mr Felten has converted the actual status of being the
Fidonews editor into a soapbox to preach his *personal political*
discomforts with the USA, ranging from its society, Government,
foreign and domestic policy decisions made past and present. At every
turn he was casting out insults towards the USA, to which he thinks
are criticisms, but were ad naseum quips that constantly conveyed the
same old political distaste that Mr Felten feels towards the USA and
towards others who disagree with him. It was not enough for Mr Felten
to repeat the same dislike over and over again as if each time he
spoke it, was the first. When told of this, Mr Felten would deny and
then demand proof. Recent examples of proof are met with exclamations
of having a thin skins.

Over the course of years, there has been alot of back and forth,
action and reaction, others call it tit for tat. There are no totally
innocent or totally guilty parties.

In the beginnings of Fidonet there was alot of weight being thrown
around by then Zone One against the then smaller Zones 2 thru 6, since
the mathmatics has changed and Zone One is one of the smaller Zones,
and Zone 2 the largest, some personalities have decided that its time
for Zone 2 to exact revenge.

As previously mentioned, Mr Felten enjoyed the status of being the
editor without expending much effort in doing the job of the editor,
the vast majority of issues published by Mr Felten are empty shells
devoid of content, just boilerplate, masthead etc.

It is regretful that this action becomes necessary for it will
reinforce the cross zonal differences for those who have chosen to
harbor them.

Anyone wishing read/write access to the echo should contact their
Z1 uplink at 1:123/500, 1:261/38, or 1:140/1, with their request
directly.

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20060121
 * Origin: The Eastern Star - Spartanburg, SC USA (1:123/456)