AOL Siteban?

[TheVrolok]

I assume AOL's sitebanned because of all the lame 'h@XoRs' and basically ignorant people, but is there anything that can be done for the good few among us... No big plight just curious, NetZero is keeping Anandtech alive for me.


Nothing can be done


Anandtech Moderator

 

[guyver01]

Blame AOL... or rather... blame the way AOL does IP addressing.

AOL has a few million members... but does not have a few million IP addresses... they probably have ~100,000 IP addresses. As such, only that many people can log onto AOL at one time.

When you log onto AOL, they give you a 'temporary' IP address. When you log off.. you IP address goes back into the dynamic pool. The next time someone logs on, they may get your IP address.

As such, if your IP gets banned, that doesn't mean you're banned.. just that IP. And if someone else gets unlucky to get your IP, they cannot log onto the forums. And you could possibly get back on, because you have another IP.

Unless AOL happens to get enough IP addresses for each of its memebers, there's no way AOL's gonna be lifted.

 

[narzy]

guyver01 they proxy so they can have a hell of alot more people online at once many people use 1 ip at a time. (same Idea if you have a router in your house such in mine I have computers on private Ip's but use 1 IP for the internet) now they assign their own IPs in the network of AOL which can be just about anything. its kinda interesting actually.

as for the ban you are correct a few lamers decided it to ruine it for the good people who visit. how ever AOL toped the cake with not helping deal with the problem.

 

[andrey]

At this time AOL has more than 26 million subscribers and banning all of them because of a few idiots, seems to me like an astronomical number. Let's see the numbers again: 2 vs 26,000,000 .. Hmm..
After all most of the profits AnandTech makes are from advertisements, and everyone knows very well that AOL members will make more profit here than anyone else. I think after all the time past it will be the appropriate time to rethink that decision.

 

[Thanatopsis]

andrey, how many of those 26 million subscribers actually come here? I'm sure it is in the thousands at the most, as almost anyone on computer BBS's flames AOLers.

Besides, if I understand correctly, AOLers are not banned from visited the site, only from posting at it.

 

[dchilder]

Keep 'm banned I say...

 

[Russ]

Since the BBS had about 15K members when AOL was banned, and we now have over 41K, I'd say it was a pretty smart move booting the riff-raff.

Russ, NCNE