AOL

[Israel Stein]

Mr. Coates,

No attack is meant or implied on users of AOL - only on a corporation
that provides troublesome software to its subscribers. It is hoped by
myself and others who have made postings on the subject that the
resulting pressure will convince AOL to fix the problem - at which point
all of us will be very happy to drop the subject. Until then AOL users
should remain aware of the problems they can inadvertently cause - and
the rest of us should watch for them. I'm attaching an informative post
on exactly what those problems are (they may not be relevant to this list).

As far as my "attitude" elsewhere, I have yet to receive any negative
comments from anyone - publicly or privately. My comments have sparked a
few spirited discussions - which I believe is good - and a few useful
private exchanges. There's nothing wrong with controversy. I have no
desire to engage in controversy on this list - I subscribe to it mostly
for information. Whereas where the public is concerned - as on the
rec.music.makers.whatever newsgroups - I feel it is important to prevent
misinformation, misunderstanding, etc. I am deeply conscious of the
potential problems that misunderstanding or misapplication of the advice
given out can cause and try to do my best to minimize the damage. What's
wrong with that? I have my opinions and preferences and so do others so
what's wrong with a public airing? So far it has led to a rethinking of
some long held beliefs both by myself and by others.

Again, I apologize if my comment was perceived as criticism of AOL users,
it certainly wasn't meant that way. AOL related info (with its sources)
follows my signature.

Israel Stein

>From johnpeek@CYBERSPACE.COM Sun Oct 16 10:33:55 1994
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 06:53:25 -0700
From: John Peekstok <johnpeek@CYBERSPACE.COM>
Reply to: Early Music List <EARLYM-L@AEARN.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list EARLYM-L <EARLYM-L@AEARN.BITNET>
Subject: AOL problems/ was The MUSICAL OFFERING on the net!

James R. McCarty (JamesM81@aol.com) wrote:

: I'm brand new on the 'net, and am embarrassed to ask someone I don't know,
: how did you go about quoting my message with the > marks? I'm doing this on
: AOL, since it has cheaper access to the 'net than CI$. It may be automatic;
: the Beginner's Kit/Etiquette Guide I received Tuesday so implies. I'm going
: to instruct LISTSERV to echo my messages back to me so I can see what they
: look like.

Your problem is AOL. They for some reason decided to make a "user
friendly" interface and they defined that as "stupid". Anything you post
on the net will look different than what everyone else is posting. Your
attribution lines and quotes will be really messed up unless you spend a
lot of time fixing them manually. The only way I know to get the previous
article quoted in your post is to use your computer's copy and paste
functions to copy the previous post, then hit whatever icon you hit to
reply, then paste the previous post into your reply. This will not produce
the little > or : marks that tell everyone that you are qouting, so you
will have to add them or do something else to make it clear who said what.
If you are trying to quote a post that was quoting an earlier post it can
get complicated. Remember that all other interfaces have a limit on the
number of characters per line, so if you start adding > and >> and >>> to
the beginning of lines in your quotes you will probably cause other
people's machines to have some bad line spacing problems. Besides, it's a
real pain in the butt for you to do.

Another problem you will find with AOL is that the articles don't expire
and disappear in a timely fashion. Most other newsreaders get rid of the
articles after a certain amount of time (a week or two, I'm not sure).
AOL keeps articles for six months. What this means is that often an AOL
user will not read his news or mail for a few weeks or a month or two and
then suddenly start responding to posts that everyone else has long
forgotten. This can be vexing, expecially when dead flame wars get revived.

I have been encouraging AOL users to complain to AOL about the
non-standard Internet interface. They certainly don't listen to (or even
reply to) non-AOL people.

Have you really looked around for a different on-line provider? I used to
use AOL and was spending way too much money -- after the five hours per
month that the basic rate covers they start to charge by the minute and if
you are reading a few newsgroups that can get real expensive. I found a
local company that charges me a flat monthly fee. By paying for a year in
advance I was able to get a price that is lower than AOL's monthly fee. I
get unlimited time on the net and LOTS more features than AOL offers. I
know that there are areas where there are no such providers, but there are
new ones cropping up all the time. In Seattle there are probably eight
companies at least providing this kind of service.

Sorry for this long non-EM post.
--
_______________________________________
John Peekstok   johnpeek@cyberspace.com
"If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress?"

>From brlink@AOL.COM Sun Oct 16 10:34:11 1994
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 15:28:16 -0400
From: BRLink <brlink@AOL.COM>
Reply to: Early Music List <EARLYM-L@AEARN.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list EARLYM-L <EARLYM-L@AEARN.BITNET>
Subject: Re: new AOL people, please read (was Re: Hilliard Old Hall reco

In article <34ngef$cpl@jhunix1.hcf.jhu.edu>, velde@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
(Francois Velde) writes:

>>New AOL people, you will take a lot of flak about this: something is
screwed
up in your software, and it mixes up attributions.  Try to watch who wrote
what: otherwise, it becomes at best confusing, insulting at worst.  And it
generates avoidable traffic ("Hey, I never wrote that!")<<

(And you DID write that, Francois!)

When an AOL user replies to a newsgroup message, the reader software
automatically finds who sent the message they were just reading, and pops
the header "so & so writes:" on the top. It's then fill-in-the-blanks
time, and I can see some folks just blithely typing their response without
noticing the attribution header put on. AOL does have messages that come
up each time a usenet session is invoked, instructing users in this and
other points of "netiquette" -- these messages must be read to be
effective.

Sorry to increase the net.spam, but if other new AOL'ers read this thread,
these comments may be helpful..

BLink
Brian Link in St. Paul, Minnesota

On Sun, 16 Oct 1994 Tcoates@aol.com wrote:

> >Subject: Re: AOL
> >To: pianotech@byu.edu (Multiple recipients of list)
> >May I add that America On Line software has been wreaking havoc on >mailing
> >lists and newsgroups by making it very easy to misattribute quotations,
>  > (I was at one time a victim) misdirect replies and do other nasty things
> >that are quite bothersome to the rest of us here in the virtual universe.
> >AOL has been very unresponsive, so that a crusade is afoot to convince >AOL
> >users to find an internet access that is less hassle for the rest of us.
> >You should be aware of this if such problems arise here...
>
> >Israel Stein
>
>
> I have access to the internet through a university and AOL.  I choose to use
> AOL because it is much easier and fits my needs.  Compuserv, Prodigy, ect.
> must not be in the virtual universe either, Mr. Stein?  Does that mean the
> PTG office in Kansas City (Compuserv) isn't in your universe?
>
> I can understand being frustrated with a problem with the software of AOL,
>  but sometimes things happen we have no control over.  There are things we do
> have control over.  Attacking people and groups of people because they do
> things differently is something we can control.  Why don't you give it a try?
>
> By the way, I have been following some of your comments on other lists, and I
> hope you don't bring the same attitude here.
>
> Tim Coates, RPT
> University of South Dakota
>
>
>