Being a Sysop

A couple of weeks ago there was some noise on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos, the usenet newsgroup where a bunch of scene people have some chat but are mostly disturbed by some idiots who think demos are previews of games.

Anyway someone came up with the idea only to let 'creative' people be part of a jury. This meant only coders, gfx artist, and musician. Nobody else would be allowed to vote for a compo. Now that would exclude us sysops from the votings why we have acutally one of the most important functions in your scene. Zteel / Diffusion started a discussion on that matter in wich I happily assisted him.

Most of us sysops are part of a group (some even of more groups). Some of us are gfx artist, musicans or coders that now have not time anymore to do their original tasks. As for myselve I coded the first intro for the Natives (in that time CIA) (or was it the second) and then I started running the board, organising the group etc I haven't got time anymore to code so I'll leave that to the guys who have more time to do it. Zteel told me he did some graphics in the past. Tasmaniac is still busy coding and it wouldn't suprise me if Gandalf, Drain, Brian, Pfusuus, Disperin ,Royal and lots of other sysops also have the same problem.

Most of the time we Organise one or more groups. Which means we probably know what tasks we are giving to the coders, and that we know what we are talking about.
WE have to spread all the releases and check everything, while checking we see almost all the releases that YOU have made. Most of the coders just grab some things from a board/ftp site and watch them.. We have to see them all (which is off course impossible). So we can compare the things we have seen probably a bit better.

Our most important task is to get all the releases fast enough, and that's something you don't realise. Where did you get this issue of Impobia ?? 3 possibilities ..

If you got it from a friend, where did he get it ?? (2) or (3) ?? And when it's on a ftp site or bbs the sysop overthere had to make sure it worked and that it was in the right directory so that you could easily find it. Maybe you don't know but an ftpserver also has a sysop (possibly even more) but they are mostly not so social as the sysops of a bbs. So every file has to pass through a sysops hands.

If we weren't there... where would you be... Imagine no sysops. You would be writing tons of letter to people asking for their latest release. Right I have to admit.. mail swapping is fun sometimes.. but if it's the only way of communicating with eachother.

We sysops also carry the networks like GSN,DGI and CMN you'd like to read everymorning in stead of your local paper. We spent lot's of money getting those nets abroad.

For me it's quite simple.. no sysops = no scene

So just think about us when you make rules about voting or when you think about releasing that old 254Mb Animation you just made.

Greetings to all my collegues out there in the hard world... Keep up the good work... only the best will survive !

Sleeping Dog / Sysop The Velvet Demosite