Co-Sysops and Mentors in The Scene

Two heads are most often better than one, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel when you can get together with someone who's knowledgeable about what you are going through to make the steps in BBS development a lot easier. In The BBS Scene there is a common mentality of helping fellow sysops and clients out. Its good times.

We Have Friends and Mentors in The Scene 🙂

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Having a partner to help you along in discovering the various aspects of BBSing and the BBS community is a great gift.  The barrier to entry in making your own BBS is rather steep.  Personally, it took me several months before I could master Mystic BBS.  Mystic is the most user-friendly alternative of BBS software, yet it can still take a lot of work to understand the systems that underlie the technology.  BBSes are immensely fun to setup and use but the average social networkers don't have the slightest clue about BBSing; if it doesn't have point and click technology in it they don't want to spend the time with it.  BBSes aren't for lazy people.  However, BBS sysops and users can really help each other out, sharing knowledge, and being a guiding hand in progressive education from the “newb” to “user” to “sysop” to “network admin.”  

Someone to Rely on And Someone to Guide You

When something breaks, and it eventually will, its a real stress reliever to know that you have a friend that you can contact to help sort out the issue.  In amateur radio these people are called Elmers.  Whereas, in The BBS Scene, helpers are called co-sysops or mentors.  Advanced users/admins can help out the mentee  fixing odd blue screens (not related to Windows), strange characters where they should not be, or even not all about fixing systems but rather adding features to systems such as echomail nets, remote file servers, and gaming systems.  Having someone who you can rely on makes the whole hobby worth while.  Have fun!

Getting Responsibilities as a Co-Sysop

Delegation of tasks can be difficult on BBS servers.  The psychological leaning of sysops is to get everything done just right, how they would do it.  Giving over responsibility can be difficult for people who have this psychological profile.  By giving decisions of who is responsible for what, and having this as an official understanding, rather than just having two people poking around on BBSes in an issue that will need to be overcome, but when it is life can treat you well.

Recommendations

The best place to social network on bulletin board systems is to use the Multi-Relay Chat, where you can find many people who are willing to lend you a hand.  This instant messaging system is available from The Quantum Wormhole (bbs.erb.pw:23 using Telnet), Al's Geek Lab (bbs.alsgeeklab.com:2323 using Telnet), and many other systems, over one hundred to be specific.