[Dxspider-support] Discussion: Informing Users About Registration Requirement for Spotting

[Mikel EA2CW]

Thanks for your contribution, David. It can make us don't forget what 
are we spending our time for.

Please, let me analyze it from, let's say, a "bussiness" point of view...

A. What are we selling?: spots.

B. What is our "market"? As you said, mainly aged amateur radio operators.

We could somehow divide them in some types:
- Serious contesters
- Occasional contesters
- DX hunters
- Awards hunters

C. How do we serve our "product"? Could be:

1. Directly to the "client" at telnet windows
2. Using several software interface apps.

(I am sure that we all are aware that almost none use the 1st way, but 
the 2nd, by means of general logging, contesting or web apps.)

D. What our "clients" want these spots for?
I think they want to know WHERE and WHEN they can find some transmitting 
stations who interest them, in order to earn points of fill award slots.

That could be -on a raw way- the panorama we have.

E. What is the main problem we are facing now?
The "product" we are giving to our "clients" lacks of a minimum quality 
level, because sometimes they cannot trust on the information we give them.

By the way, I agree with you when you said that our clients (customers) 
are mainly aged, and like the rest of humankind, resistant to changes.

On the other hand, I am sure that they are also used -very used- to have 
to type passwords in their "virtual" lives: e-mail accounts, banks, 
on-line commerce, etc.

No one of these advances which are now normal in our every day life, 
would be possible today without passwords, and we use them often.

As a smart man -Isaac Asimov- said in the 80's, those who do not know 
about computing, will become the illiterates of the future (that was 5 
decades ago...)

Don't worry! as amateur radio operators we are leaders on self-taught, 
science, communications, new technologies, et al... aren't we?

Sorry!!! Let's return to our bussiness!

Nowadays we are facing a problem, and we must find a solution. 
Otherwise, we will lose our "clients" trust, and they will be not our 
"customers" anymore.
(Perhaps we have to be prepared to say goodbye to the assisted 
categories in the no CW/RTTY/FTx contests).

Would we make the interface software developers include passwords like 
in other billion applicantions we use everyday and...

Would we have to teach our customers about "how to enter a password" to 
be able -don't forget it- to UPLOAD (not to download) information to the 
network?

Or, on the contrary, must we keep the things as they are, and say to 
developers and customers:

"Sorry, if you don't want to change, be prepared to "swallow" garbage. 
We cannot guarantee the quality of the product you need to achieve your 
goals -spots- because we are afraid to include passwords, as we don't 
think you will be able to use them"

Sometimes I recall past times when some in the amateur community were 
against SSB, FM, FT8, etc. because that implied changes...

I think we would spend some time thinking carefully about all this, from 
a general POV, far from the noise we have on these times.

73, Mikel

P.S. Don't forget that before all this revolution, we were asking only 
to use passwords between servers! Users' would (only would) be a second 
stage)

El 6/3/25 a las 18:59, David Spoelstra via Dxspider-support escribió:
> 1. I am a heavy user of the cluster.
> 2. In 50 years, I have never posted a spot.
> 3. With my current logging software, I never see the telnet interface. I 
> have a table with name, IP, Port, user name, and password. Everything is 
> pre-filled in except for password. I don't even know where they get the 
> list of nodes. I *can* change the table if needed.
> 4. For those of you that wonder why you lose half your people when you 
> implement passwords, it's obvious to us that actually *use* the packet 
> cluster software rather than sit in front of it managing it from the 
> command line. WE DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU HAVE ADDED A MANDATORY PASSWORD! We 
> just know that _your node is no longer working_ so we just click on the 
> next node down in the table. I'll bet a lot of OMs wouldn't even know 
> *how* to get on a telnet terminal and add a password anymore. From my 
> experience as a club president, they can barely run the software as it 
> is. Our most asked for monthly club topics now are how to use different 
> software packages. Our most asked technical questions are no longer how 
> to build an antenna, etc, they are "How do you do X in Y software?" It 
> actually feels more like I'm running a computer club than a ham radio club!
> 
> I believe that if you really want to implement mandatory passwords, you 
> are going to have to _work with the logging program authors to make it 
> much easier for the users_. For example, in my software if I just add a 
> password in the table, it won't connect. I'm guessing that the software 
> is assuming that somehow I have already established a password with the 
> node.
> 
> Remember, the average age of our users is getting older and older and 
> they are having trouble coping with new technology. I have people in my 
> club that buy new radios and then sell them because they are "too 
> complicated" and they can't run them. You would be amazed how many 
> people use SignaLinks with IC-7300s because they don't know or can't 
> figure out how to use the built-in soundcard interface in the IC-7300! 
> When I go over to their house and remove the SignaLink from their setup 
> they argue with me that they need it to run FT8. When I run FT8 without 
> it, they are amazed and wonder why it wasn't made more obvious in the 
> software how to interface without a SignaLInk so they wouldn't buy 
> something they didn't need.
> 
> _If you want mandatory passwords, then look at it from the end user's 
> perspective - not from you own bias of command lines and telnet windows 
> - and make it much easier to implement from the end user's perspective 
> which means you are going to have to get the software authors onboard._
> 
> This is from the documentation of the DXLabs software (DXKeeper 
> specifically) - which from various tables like eQSL is one of the most 
> used softwares. "If you'd like to monitor spots from the N6WS, EI7MRE, 
> K1RFI, and JH1RFM  DXClusters, enable them and repeat the above steps. 
> Like DX Spots, none of these DXClusters require a password, so you can 
> leave their Password textboxes blank; _specifying a password when none 
> is required may cause the login to fail_."
> 
> -David, N9KT
-- 
73 de Mikel Berrocal EA2CW-AE2CW
Bilbao, Basque Country
ea2cw at gautxori.com
https://www.ea2cw.eus