Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (TexasFriedCriminal)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Thu Feb 1 11:05:00 2001
forgive the OT but I have a few questions :

what is the big difference between AOL and a real ISP?

what does AOL do to have this bad a reputation ?

Is it true that AOL is censoring, messing up with standarts and not allowing
it's users any freedom as to how they access the net?

I have heard a lot of rumors, but since I shun the "big boys" like poison, I
have no hands on experience.

thx

-- ^/_Texas - Fried - Criminal_\^ --
* you want fries with that ? *
----------------------------------------
To participate, therefore, in this
disembodied enactment of life's most
body-centered activity is to risk the
realization that when it comes to sex,
perhaps the body in question is not
the physical one at all, but its psychic
double, the bodylike self-representation
we carry around in our heads...
----------------------------------------
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Nexx)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Thu Feb 1 12:10:01 2001
----- Original Message -----
From: "TexasFriedCriminal"

> what is the big difference between AOL and a real ISP?

Basically, AOL tries to keep everything in-house; it is difficult to access
a lot of external things, including some websites, from AOL. They also
provide a graphical environment for their internet connection. To an
extent, its an OS for the Internet. Of course, like all OS's, its buggy,
and the connections generally suck eggs on AOL.

> what does AOL do to have this bad a reputation ?

Part of it is the anti-bandwagon bandwagon... people trash AOL because its
the cool thing to trash. However, it also has a _lot_ of Spam that doesn't
get regulated, the interface is buggy, and the connections aren't that good
in most cases.

> Is it true that AOL is censoring, messing up with standarts and not
allowing
> it's users any freedom as to how they access the net?

Not IME. I use AOL in the summer, when I'm at home, and I've never been
unable to access a site. However, most of my sites are either role-playing
or heathen-oriented... I don't know what they're supposed to be regulating.


***
Skald-Mark Mjöksiglandi
a.k.a. Nexx
a.k.a. Mark Hall
***
"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I
will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
to you."
-Henry Rollins
***
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
Updated January 16th, 2001
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Augustus)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Thu Feb 1 12:40:01 2001
----- Original Message -----
From: TexasFriedCriminal <Texas-Fried-Criminal@********.de>


> what is the big difference between AOL and a real ISP?
>
> what does AOL do to have this bad a reputation ?
>
> Is it true that AOL is censoring, messing up with standarts and not
allowing
> it's users any freedom as to how they access the net?

Heya,

There are two big things with AOL that make people hate it:
1) Its "in" to hate big companies right now. (AOL, Microsoft, Starbucks,
etc)
2) The users.
AOL has always been easy to use, and in the early days of the net
growth, the more experienced users went to "real" ISPs, while the less
experienced users were on AOL. This partly gave AOL users a bad rep... they
frequently violated netiquette, asked alot of newbie questions and such.

Part of my biggest beef with AOL users is the usenet... their servers seem
to retain messages going back a couple of months... a new user signs up...
finds the usenet section and they start reading from post 1... then
*shudder* they start posting replies to these messages... usually threads
that went on for a couple of months and eventually died out are brought back
to life and plague the usenet for months on end.

As for differences between AOL and a "real" ISP... I would assume that a
full fledged ISP is abit faster, since it doesn't have to manage your
activities with the interface (I'd assume the interface is continually
updating itself, using bandwidth to keep things 'current')

As for censoring... can't say how it is now, but alot of people had a beef a
couple of years back when AOL cut out the ALT. usenet hierarchy.

Sure... alot of the ALT groups are warez and porn... but its also where you
find all the sports groups, some of the video game/computer game chats, most
of the .support groups...

But, rather than weed out the porn and warez, they just cut all the ALT.
groups out instead.

Overall though, if it works for you, and you are satisfied with the service,
then I wouldn't really care what other people have to say about it.

Personally, I think the internet needs services like AOL... it allows the
inexperienced users on the net... people who wouldn't be able to configure
their clients and software properly to use the net... as these people become
more experienced, they either stick with what they know (AOL) or move on to
another ISP if thats thier desire.

Augustus
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (TexasFriedCriminal)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Thu Feb 1 13:15:00 2001
From: Augustus & Nexx

thx a lot

one is always smarter having asked than having guessed

-- ^/_Texas - Fried - Criminal_\^ --
* you want fries with that ? *
----------------------------------------
To participate, therefore, in this
disembodied enactment of life's most
body-centered activity is to risk the
realization that when it comes to sex,
perhaps the body in question is not
the physical one at all, but its psychic
double, the bodylike self-representation
we carry around in our heads...
----------------------------------------
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Jeremy DeVore)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Thu Feb 1 13:35:01 2001
I am an outsourced customer service tech, who happens to be contracted to
AOL at the moment (and for the past year and a half). I have used AOL in the
past, I have used several traditional dial-ups, and now I use DSL.

In my experience with AOL they do not censor anything on the web (unless
parental controls are in place for the screen name); AOL will NOT touch your
email (believe me they are paranoid about keeping people's email private);
public chats and message boards are suposed to be censored (or at least
checked on), Newsgroups are limited to those that AOL finds acceptible (well
the one's they have read anyway, I have noted a few in there I know AOL
would have pitched a fit about at some point).

Almost any problems people have with AOL come directly from the software.
First it is a big time resourse hog, and because the dial up is dependant on
the software if your system resourses drop too low you are not going online
(or you get bumped offline a lot). I can not tell you how many times I have
had to raise the system resourses on some one's computer to get them online.
Second, AOL has it in it's mind to use a million different adapters to do
the same damned thing a regular dial up does. The adapters can be prone to
damage (in other words screw up) and have to be repaired at times (there are
special tools built into AOL to do this if that gives you an idea of how
common it was happening). Third, majority rules. AOL will make a choice
about what to put in the software based on what the majortity of the
customers want (or what they think they want). The whole HTML email debacle
is a prime example of this (which according to AOL, if you send an email
with NO special formatting and keep the defauly font and text preferences,
it will send an email in plain text... haven't had a customer yet have luck
with that...).

But not all at AOL is bad. I can tell they have the best of intensions,
because believe it or not they do listen to customer feedback and try to
adapt things to what the customers want. It's a slow process and sometimes
things don't come out right, but they do try.

The best thing about AOL is ease of use. Hell I have my parents on AOL,
because it is easy to use and if they have a question we have tech support
to answer thier questions if they can't get hold of me. Everything a lot of
people do when they are online can be accessed right there without having to
launch multiple programs. Which is a double edged sword because there are 27
million average people on a single service. You are going to end up with the
know-it-all-I-don't-care-about-anyone high school kid, and the hard working
responsible father who can't find his way around.

I tend to stay away from AOL because I work with it all the time and it
drives me nuts. But the idea that all AOL customers are lamers or idiots is
just not true. I have talked to Microsoft Techs who couldn't get thier AOL
running (wait a minute not a good example), lawers, doctors, professionals
of all sorts. AOL targets itself to the everyman. In other words anyone,
even those with no experience with computers. I have my own parents on AOL.
They have gotten to the point where they are pretty good at it too. With
thier old ISP they only managed to surf the web, with AOL I get email from
them and can talk with them via Instant Message.

So while AOL has it's problems, and I myself wouldn't use it, there are many
people out there that I would recomend it to (actually one of my friends
that I work with who passionately hates AOL is using it because it has the
fastest connection in his area :-) ).

You should here the stories my wife tells me (she is contracted out to Web
TV).

Later

J

http://www.geocities.com/awalkintheshadows
http://www.d20universe.net

"I am oblivious to most things"
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Phaedyme)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Sun Feb 4 02:50:06 2001
TexasFriedCriminal wrote:
>
> forgive the OT but I have a few questions :
<snip?

The answer to many of your questions can be found at
http://www.aolsucks.com

--
Watch This Space | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"...oh Brave New World that has such people in it."
http://www.teleport.com/~xenya | -- The Tempest, Shakespeare
Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Mark Imbriaco)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Sun Feb 4 11:35:01 2001
On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Phaedyme wrote:

>
>
> TexasFriedCriminal wrote:
> >
> > forgive the OT but I have a few questions :
> <snip?
>
> The answer to many of your questions can be found at
> http://www.aolsucks.com

Though take everything you read there with a very large grain of
salt. Those people have an axe to grind with AOL and are obviously
biased against it. YMMV.

-Mark
Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Phaedyme)
Subject: [OT] AOL
Date: Sun Feb 4 17:10:01 2001
Mark Imbriaco wrote:
>
> > The answer to many of your questions can be found at
> > http://www.aolsucks.com
>
> Though take everything you read there with a very large grain of
> salt. Those people have an axe to grind with AOL and are obviously
> biased against it. YMMV.

Very true, yet much of their information is also true.

--
Watch This Space | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"...oh Brave New World that has such people in it."
http://www.teleport.com/~xenya | -- The Tempest, Shakespeare

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about [OT] AOL, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!