On Tue, 26 Sep 1995 10:01:43 CST, Katherine Villyard wrote:
>I'm sure AOL is reluctant to do anything to this guy since he's a paying
>customer.
 
Fortunately, AOL has several million customers--one more or less has
negligible impact on the bottom line.  I know many Internet users regard
AOL subscribers as less than pond scum, but that attitude is seriously
misplaced (once upon a time we were ALL beginners, and many AOL accounts
are owned by Internet users who graduated from their .edu accounts, changed
employers and whatnot--they ARE US!).
 
AOL management has been EXTREMELY cooperative and responsible about problem
users.  Those of us who managed lists in the old days (1986 :-) love and
appreciate David O'Donnell and his overworked staff.  We remember having to
deal with postmasters who were busy system programmers "volunteered" for
the job by their boss who responed to inquiries with "what's a list?" or
"What's an RFC" or "Oh yes, we know our mail software doesn't conform to
Internet specifications and we're working with our vendor to correct
it--we'll have it taken care of in six months or so...maybe" and even
sometimes "tough ****" (when they answered at all).
 
How long has it been since awaking to discover over 1,000 undelivered mail
messages from some host (usually in the UK over a holiday) mailing back to
the list and cycling through loop after loop?  It would have been much
worse, but in those days the host-to-host speed was only 9.6 kbps.  My how
things have changed.  Today's hassles are comparatively trivial.
 
/s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (860) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (860) 456-7725 fax
   http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html