Ardith Hinton to Anton Shepelev:

This apparently simple question has brought all sorts
of interesting people out of the woodwork.

You mean termites, what?!

Speaking figuratively, I was including various people
who don't often say much here but are well worth
listening to.... :-)

Yes, I understood you, and made a feeble attempt at a lowly
joke prompted and insufficiently justified by an implicit
and unnoticed metaphor of FidoNet as an old, desolate, and
decaying wooden building, whose last surviving inhabitants
have retreated behind &c, &c.

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* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)