Editing FidoNet (section)

===Points===
As the number of messages in Echomail grew over time, it became very difficult for users to keep up with the volume while logged into their local BBS. ''Points'' were introduced to address this, allowing technically savvy users to receive the already compressed and batched Echomail (and Netmail) and read it locally on their own machines.{{sfn|Schuyler|1992|loc=Section 5}}

To do this, the FidoNet addressing scheme was extended with the addition of a final address segment, the point number. For instance, a user on the example system above might be given point number 10, and thus could be sent mail at the address <code>1:170/918.10</code>.

In real-world use, points are fairly difficult to set up. The FidoNet software typically consisted of a number of small utility programs run by manually edited scripts that required some level of technical ability. Reading and editing the mail required either a "sysop editor" program or a BBS program to be run locally.

In North America (Zone 1), where local calls are generally free, the benefits of the system were offset by its complexity. Points were used only briefly, and even then only to a limited degree. Dedicated [[offline mail reader]] programs such as Blue Wave, Squiggy and Silver Xpress (OPX) were introduced in the mid-1990s and quickly rendered the point system obsolete. Many of these packages supported the [[QWK (file format)|QWK]] offline mail standard.

In other parts of the world, especially Europe, this was different. In Europe, even local calls are generally metered, so there was a strong incentive to keep the duration of the calls as short as possible. Point software employs standard compression (ZIP, ARJ, etc.) and so keeps the calls down to a few minutes a day at most. In contrast to North America, pointing saw rapid and fairly widespread uptake in Europe.

Many regions distribute a pointlist in parallel with the nodelist. The pointlist segments are maintained by Net- and Region Pointlist Keepers and the Zone Point List Keeper assembles them into the Zone pointlist. At the peak of FidoNet there were over 120,000 points listed in the Zone 2 pointlist. Listing points is on a voluntary basis and not every point is listed, so how many points there really were is anybody's guess. As of June 2006, there are still some 50,000 listed points. Most of them are in Russia and Ukraine.