This is a hoax that comes up occasionally, according to an AOL employee. It
was mentioned on another newsgroup.

dwhite

itisa

gfretwell repeats:

itisa

Huh? As a quick note on the header, I got another pop up message from AOL this
morning as I headed in this direction. No dates yet, but every time I hit my
Newsgroups button, zing, the note pops up. Later today, I'll switch ISPs.

In the meantime, AOL sits back and wonders WTF is happening, why their long
time (decade or longer in my case) customers are bailing out. When I change
later today, which will be a PITA, what with address book and bookmarks and
email that has been saved for business, they lose another. But as the price has
risen, the service has dropped, so I'll take the time to locate another ISP
(probably Verizon, so that I can go DSL here if they ever do bring it in).

Charlie Self
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some
kind of federal program." George W. Bush, St. Charles, Missouri, November 2,
2000

Charlie Self wrote:
Huh? As a quick note on the header, I got another pop up message from AOL this
morning as I headed in this direction. No dates yet, but every time I hit my
Newsgroups button, zing, the note pops up. Later today, I'll switch ISPs.
In the meantime, AOL sits back and wonders WTF is happening, why their long
time (decade or longer in my case) customers are bailing out. When I change
later today, which will be a PITA, what with address book and bookmarks and
email that has been saved for business, they lose another. But as the price has
risen, the service has dropped, so I'll take the time to locate another ISP
(probably Verizon, so that I can go DSL here if they ever do bring it in).

Good luck on the move. Be aware that AOL has a history of making
getting rid of them difficult. It may take some effort on your
part to get them to let go.

Dave in Fairfax
--
Dave Leader
reply-to doesn't work
use:
daveldr at att dot net
American Association of Woodturners
http://www.woodturner.org
Capital Area Woodturners
http://www.capwoodturners.org/
PATINA
http://www.Patinatools.org/

Charlie ...

In the meantime, AOL sits back and wonders WTF is happening, why their
long
time (decade or longer in my case) customers are bailing out. When I change
later today, which will be a PITA, what with address book and bookmarks and
email that has been saved for business, they lose another.

To save yourself the pain of migrating all that information, you may want to
take advantage of a not-very-widely-publicised AOL plan. You get a limited
number of hours (I think it's 5 but it might be only 3) per month --
normally for people like me who use the service only for e-mail and as
emergency backup -- for $3.95 a month.

Lee

--
To e-mail, replace "bucketofspam" with "dleegordon"

It is a damn well executed hoax. The message pops up every time you select
newsgroups on AOL. Somebody in Virginia sure thinks they are dropping NGs

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:17:00 -0500, Dan White wrote:
This is a hoax that comes up occasionally, according to an AOL employee. It
was mentioned on another newsgroup.

I don't know, I've seen the same thing come up from several respected
members of several groups I'm in. Either they all got the same virus
all at once or something, or it's legit this time.

Even still, news.individual.net should work for anyone with any
kind of network connectivity, unless AOL goes out of their way
to block that port. So, even if you keep AOL for dialup, you can
still get Usenet....and with a better user interface to boot.

Would an actual news article be more convincing?

http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...html?tag=st_lh


Dan White wrote:
This is a hoax that comes up occasionally, according to an AOL employee. It
was mentioned on another newsgroup.

dwhite

Shawn wrote in
news:1106690652.763b30117bf733fbd25b7bebc69c2f52@t eranews:

Would an actual news article be more convincing?

http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...2_3-5550036.ht
ml?tag=st_lh


Assuming the CNet author knew what they were reporting, it is the AOL
proprietary interface to newsgroups for which they are discontinuing
support. Newsgroups are purported to continue to be available to those who
use a 'real newsgroup reader' (emphasis added.)

Never having used the AOL interface, I cannot offer an opinion as to
whether this represents a loss or not. The "Internet with training
wheels" has never appealed to me. I am not every company's dream market
focus segment, however.

Patriarch

Interesting, another article stated that "AOL's Usenet implementation
was non-standard from the start. The service doesn't allow members to
connect directly to its network news transfer protocol (NNTP) servers."

From
http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL_...ice/1106664611

Out of 4 articles I read, only the CNet article made it sound like
someone could still use another reader. All the others stated that the
newsgroup service itself would be shut off.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01...ff_newsgroups/
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1754373,00.asp

I would guess that CNet did not clearly represent that continued service
would require a third-party service.


Patriarch wrote:
Shawn wrote in
news:1106690652.763b30117bf733fbd25b7bebc69c2f52@t eranews:


Would an actual news article be more convincing?

http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...2_3-5550036.ht
ml?tag=st_lh



Assuming the CNet author knew what they were reporting, it is the AOL
proprietary interface to newsgroups for which they are discontinuing
support. Newsgroups are purported to continue to be available to those who
use a 'real newsgroup reader' (emphasis added.)

Never having used the AOL interface, I cannot offer an opinion as to
whether this represents a loss or not. The "Internet with training
wheels" has never appealed to me. I am not every company's dream market
focus segment, however.

Patriarch

Shawn wrote:
Interesting, another article stated that "AOL's Usenet implementation
was non-standard from the start. The service doesn't allow members to
connect directly to its network news transfer protocol (NNTP) servers."

It is intersting, but they've always known that they had a problem
that resulted in their e-mail being delayed and they've never been
willing to do anything about it. Yes, I asked long ago and far
away. If I was still on that lame*$$ service I think I'd do a DNS
look-up and try configuring a newsreader to test each of the
servers listed as theirs and figure out where their NNTP host
really was and see if I could connect to it directly. That would
allow me to connect with an external browser if they refused to
tell me what the Server was. Just a thought, not a suggestion.
The suggestion would be, ditch them and get a real ISP. YMMV.

Dave in Fairfax
--
Dave Leader
reply-to doesn't work
use:
daveldr at att dot net
American Association of Woodturners
http://www.woodturner.org
Capital Area Woodturners
http://www.capwoodturners.org/
PATINA
http://www.Patinatools.org/

Man, that really is amazing. Leave it to AOL to decide what's good for you.
If they don't have control over it then you shouldn't have it.

--
Jeff P.

"A ship carrying blue paint collided with a ship carrying red paint. The
crew are believed to be marooned."

Check out my woodshop at: www.sawdustcentral.com


"Shawn" wrote in message
news:1106690652.763b30117bf733fbd25b7bebc69c2f52@t eranews...
Would an actual news article be more convincing?


http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...html?tag=st_lh


Dan White wrote:
This is a hoax that comes up occasionally, according to an AOL employee.
It
was mentioned on another newsgroup.

dwhite

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:49:07 -0600, Jeff P. wrote:
Man, that really is amazing. Leave it to AOL to decide what's good for you.
If they don't have control over it then you shouldn't have it.

Actually, I see it as more of a "we know our interface sucks, here
use any of these other superior ones so we can stop supporting this crap
that doesn't work as well as other options". They're not forcing
anyone to stay with AOL, nor are they limiting their customers other
options.

The only people this will inconvenience substantially are those who
won't switch from AOL and who aren't computer savvy enough to
download any of the dozens of free newsreader clients out there,
or point a browser to groups.google.com.

Nothing to see here, folks...

Top-posting with context removing sign-off fixed

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:49:07 -0600, "Jeff P."
wrote:


"Shawn" wrote in message
news:1106690652.763b30117bf733fbd25b7bebc69c2f52@t eranews...
Would an actual news article be more convincing?


http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...html?tag=st_lh



Man, that really is amazing. Leave it to AOL to decide what's good for you.
If they don't have control over it then you shouldn't have it.


Looks like this may be in AOL's best interest, once again due to our
overly litigious society and the fact that AOL is a target because of its
perceived "deep pockets": From the cited article:

"AOL's newsgroups have led to some trouble for the Internet provider.
Earlier this year, AOL settled a lawsuit with writer Harlan Ellison, who
sued the company for copyright infringement. Ellison claimed AOL violated
copyright laws because his works appeared on newsgroups available through
the service."

IOW, because AOL had money, despite the fact they had no control over
Usenet content (unless there is something missing in the above statement,
such as if an AOLien posted the copyrighted works and AOL failed to respond
to notification), they were still held liable for Usenet content because
they offered access to Usenet.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety

Army General Richard Cody

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

In article ,
Mark & Juanita wrote:

Top-posting with context removing sign-off fixed

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:49:07 -0600, "Jeff P."
wrote:


"Shawn" wrote in message
news:1106690652.763b30117bf733fbd25b7bebc69c2f52@ teranews...
Would an actual news article be more convincing?


http://news.com.com/AOL+shutting+dow...html?tag=st_lh



Man, that really is amazing. Leave it to AOL to decide what's good for you.
If they don't have control over it then you shouldn't have it.


Looks like this may be in AOL's best interest, once again due to our
overly litigious society and the fact that AOL is a target because of its
perceived "deep pockets": From the cited article:

"AOL's newsgroups have led to some trouble for the Internet provider.
Earlier this year, AOL settled a lawsuit with writer Harlan Ellison, who
sued the company for copyright infringement. Ellison claimed AOL violated
copyright laws because his works appeared on newsgroups available through
the service."

IOW, because AOL had money, despite the fact they had no control over
Usenet content (unless there is something missing in the above statement,
such as if an AOLien posted the copyrighted works and AOL failed to respond
to notification), they were still held liable for Usenet content because
they offered access to Usenet.

NAH. It's because AOL's lawyers were *utterly* incompetent.

Apparently they never read 47 USC 230 (c) (1).

which can be found online at http://www3.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/230.html

Harlan should have been laughed out of court.