Forwarding, AOL and life

[Louise Sugar <dragonfyr@tycho.com>]

Poster: Louise Sugar <dragonfyr@tycho.com>

It is this kind of e-mail junk that gets AOL people their terrible reputation for spamming and rudeness.  Not all AOL people do this.  I have been a member for nearly 9 years (1988 to be exact when AOL was Apple-Link PE).  This would be considered to be a chain letter which is prohibited by America Online's Terms of Service and which would get your account actioned or terminated.  If you have a problem with a particular policy of AOL please write to screen name SteveCase and let him and the people who work for him that you are unhappy with the policy.  I wrote a short piece that if anyone would like to read I will copy to the end of this message.  Have a good day and be kind to those around you


In service to the Dream and to my fellow journeyers though this life

Dragonfyr





Dear friend, let an old person tell you a story which at this point spans 8 years:

Part 1
Once upon a time there was an online service dedicated to the Apple series of computers.  Connections were few and busy signals many as more and more people discovered it. And the people were upset but things did work out as the service acquired more bandwidth.  This was the village where everyone knew everyone else and looked out for everyone else. (AppleLink Personal Edition)

Part 2
They began to expand quickly and tho the members were many, the service was a friendly warm place something like a small town.  Fewer people knew everyone but it was a fun place to play even tho there were sometimes busy signals and dropped carriers. This too worked out as bandwidth increased. (America Online/Quantum Computer Services)

Part 3
The service decided to merge their various interests (America Online, Promenade, QuantumLink and PCLink) under one heading (America Online) and the people were wroth.  Our small town became a bustling city overnight.  People were rude, arguments were many, lines were drawn and factions were formed, connections were few and busy signals many.  People suggested boycotting the system til things went back to the way they were before but 6 mos after the merge we were a community once more, bandwidth improved and the people were happy tho there were now enclaves of older users who clung to their old neighborhoods.

Part 4
Like any city, AOL continued to grow and became a large city.  Unfortunately, like in any city, construction and detours inconvenienced people and people got upset.  Tho connections much of the time were good and bandwidth sufficient, there were times of heavy usage when there were busy signals and broken connections.  Like in any city, attempts were made to widen roads and increase on and off ramps and like in any city the people screamed at the disruption of their day to day life.

Part 5
Our city is now a flourishing metropolis.  Few people know more than a handful of their neighbors.  There is an underworld of password scammers and account phishers, of e-mail spammers and junk mail senders and yes, even of those who send those little messages that should be wrapped in brown paper and relegated to the bottom of the trashcan.  People have found that AOL is a good place to live their virtual lives and so there has been a tremendous immigration which has put a strain on the virtual city services.  It is harder to get a taxi (connection), sometimes the transit system experiences a strike and workers walk off the job (dropped connections), there is more stuff to deal with like insufficient trash removal (nasty messages on boards and obnoxious users) and panhandlers(Scammers).  Like any metropolis AOL is working on buying more taxis, keeping strikes to a minimum, hiring more city workers, cleaning up neighborhoods and still maintaining the city and improving services and like in any metropolis this takes time and tho sometimes it seems like the job is at a standstill Rome/New York City/Washington DC/AOL was not built in a day.  Sometimes progress is measured in inches and at times in miles.

Part 6

The Future....Only the Supreme Being knows what will ultimately happen



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