Re: simtel access, David Kirschbaum wrote:
>
> We are totally disinterested in your inability to reach ftp sites.
>
> We make it very clear that we expect all visits, all downloads, to be
> through our web page. How else do you expect us to stay alive here? Only
> page visits pay our salaries, the updating of equipment, the very Internet
> access itself!
>
> We stopped publishing the file catalogs, the .IDX files, because thieves
> and "link archives" were stealing them, using them to build their own
> "archive site", getting all the visits, using OUR sites for the downloads,
> letting us do all the work.
>
> We could not survive that way. So .. no more .IDX files.
>
> Is it so much to ask that you visit our web page for your downloads?
> That's where you'll get the latest descriptions, the download counts.
>
> If you do NOT visit us .. well, we just won't be here any more. Then what
> will you do?
Hello David;
I'm sure you realize that I/WE will be just fine. ;-)
Although I sympathize with YOUR necessity to stay alive, I feel that
the method you have chosen is doomed to certain failure.
HTTP visitors, by their very nature, will be much less technically
inclined and therefore both your visit and download count will tend
toward MUCH smaller numbers.
The attraction of simtel.net in the past has been the easy access.
Here is a suggested half-way solution:
Create an alternate FTP-like HTTP interface that operates EXACTLY like an
FTP interface but allows you to place ads and banners across the top.
And let some of us (that won't be back otherwise) avoid the current main
page and download pages that only supply the minimal amount of information
that you seem to assume typical webusers can handle.
Good luck in your attempt to find and sustain life.
- Clarence Verge
--
- Help stamp out FATWARE. As a start visit: http://home.arachne.cz/
- The internet is infected - Windows is a VIRUS !!
--
