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ISP banning unfair!!!!!!!!!!!!!

R

rogue1979

Diamond Member
I know about the AOL problem where users are banned from posting. There seems to be a growing list of ISP providers being added. Furthermore, to receive you password you must have an approved e-mail address. It is getting harder and harder to remain an AnandTech Forum Member. I am a Golden Member and have worked hard to contribute to the the forums and reach this level. Because of circumstances beyond my control, I may lose my status and have to start over, or not even be able to post again. I was considering paying for the extended bandwidth option, Anandtech is a valuable site and I want to support it. I live in Monument CO and I have a limited list of ISP providers to choose from. I have gone through two or three local ones that have had unacceptable service. The average rate is $9.95 per month for unlimited hours. It seems some of the smaller companies cannot handle the services for this amount of money. Wal-Mart Connect is what my wife uses and it works great, absolutely reliable. However, when I set-up a seperate account for myself it was recognized as an AOL ISP and I was banned from posting in AnandTech Forums. Their price and service was right, but I can't use Wal-Mart Connect because some individuals at AOL screwed things up. Then AnandTech banned AOL presumably because the wouldn't cooperate. I am being punished along with tens of thousands of others through no fault of ours.

Where will it end? There are always undesirable people who like to cause trouble, it seems just a matter of time until they contribute to many more ISP providers being banned. I am beginning to wonder if AnandTech is simply running out of bandwidth and is banning AOL for that reason. It doesn't make sense to me, because AOL alone probably carries more customers than all other ISP providers combined. Why not just charge a small monthly fee for all members, and use the considerable amount of income generated to go toward upgrading the servers and connections? There would be ample money left over for resources to police undesirable members instead of banning whole ISP's. Sure, AnandTech Forums might lose a percentage of members that don't want to pay, but bottom line is they will still have more money to work with. I feel like the Forums are a service offered, and charging a small fee would not be inappropriate. AnandTech Forums is definately in class of it's own, and has earned the right to charge members a reasonable fee to keep thing running smoothly. For those people who don't think they should be charged, there are scores of other free message boards out there to post you questions and contribute to.
 
From what I understand, a few bad apples spoiled the bunch. The problems with AOL users were so bad, and AOL was so unwilling to help, that Anandtech had no other choice but to ban that IP range. Anandtech is not the only place to have enacted such a ban. AOL has been banned from certain IRC networks as well (that may have finally been lifted though, I haven't checked).

If you're going to blame anyone, blame AOL, or more importantly, the users who brought this to be.
 
If you are going to pay for an ISP, have you checked out Juno.

It is not banned and has many local dial-up #s.

I am sure that there are also other national ISPs that are much more responsive than AOL.
 
The problem with AOL was so bad probably because of their amount of customers being very large. I am blaming the indivduals who caused it. But AnandTech's solution is not the best. Like I said there will always be undesirables causing problems from all ISP's out there. This is AnandTech's responsibility to take care of their own forums. It is unreasonable to think all ISP's (in other words the whole world) can or will police what a few people do in AnandTech. It is a shame that AOL doesn't try to help, but they don't care simply because they are in business to keep as many customers as possible.
 
I tried Net Zero which is Juno. There was a phone line problem from my house and they were unable/unwilling to resolve it. I could never get a connection through to their server.
 
Originally posted by: Lucky
AT should lift post/email bans for paying subscribers.
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If it were easy to do, I agree that being a subscriber should be able to get you past all isp-wide bans.

Much of the problems lie with the ISP's themselves, who are staying at arms length to many abuse violations. If they don't see it, they don't have to deal with it. Afterall, they've got their money.

Other issues would be seen in how the banning's are conducted/carried out and allowing for temporary exemptions. It's a pain, but if someone's willing to subscribe, it's a pain worth suffering.
 
Originally posted by: Lucky
AT should lift post/email bans for paying subscribers.
Click to expand...

Since most of the banned ISP's, if not all, use a dynamic IP, the MODs would have to allow ALL the IP ranges to remain intact. I do not see this happening in the future.
 
Originally posted by: rogue1979
The problem with AOL was so bad probably because of their amount of customers being very large. I am blaming the indivduals who caused it. But AnandTech's solution is not the best. Like I said there will always be undesirables causing problems from all ISP's out there. This is AnandTech's responsibility to take care of their own forums. It is unreasonable to think all ISP's (in other words the whole world) can or will police what a few people do in AnandTech. It is a shame that AOL doesn't try to help, but they don't care simply because they are in business to keep as many customers as possible.
Click to expand...

The actions taken by the AT admins should be common place on the internet. If the ISPs are unwilling to take actions against these bad apples then that isp should not have the resources it has. If everyone started shunning the isps (ip ranges, countries, companies, etc) where problems typically come from there could be less problems on the net. The isps would be forces to take action against the users in order to allow the good users to enjoy the resources the other users tried to spoil. Its a good solution to a problem. Complain to AOL, its their fault.
 
think it would be a good idea to allow subscribers to post on banned ISPs...... I bet it would get a lot of people to signup.
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It would probably be more cost effective if they didn't sign up and weren't able to post.
 
Fortunately, when slavery was very unfair, and women weren't allowed to vote, things did get changed
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Yeah right. Shoot off a letter to your Congressman because your whining here is probably falling on deaf ears.
 
Originally posted by: rogue1979
Fortunately, when slavery was very unfair, and women weren't allowed to vote, things did get changed😉
Click to expand...

I still have my doubts about allowing women to vote.
 
I do think it would be reasonable(and perhaps profitable) for subscribers to be allowed to post from any isp. If there is a problem with the subscriber after that, simply revoke the account.

It seems that it would make the subscriber option more attractive, and not at costs significantly higher than current subscribers.


My thoughts...

Orie
 
Hmm.. I can see this from both sides.. I know if my ISP was banned, I'd wanna find out which end-user screwed it up for me and go out and seriously kick his arse! :|

 
Juno's AUP or EULA has some clauses in it that are unacceptable to me (along the lines of "we own your cpu time"). They are not an option.

how about per-user unblocking, so you can log in, and if you existed already then you would be allowed? set it up so first IPs are banned, but then you allow valid logins from existing users regardless of IP?

anyway, do we really want AOL members here? 😉
 
I tried Juno and wasn't happy with them My wife loves wmconnect. I pay $22.00 a month for earthlink just so I can connect to Anandtech from home. I would subscribe in a heartbeat if I could connect with wnconnect.com and drop earthlink.
 
Since most of the banned ISP's, if not all, use a dynamic IP, the MODs would have to allow ALL the IP ranges to remain intact. I do not see this happening in the future.
Click to expand...

This doesn't make much sense to me. Ban the IP's on the free servers, don't ban them on the subsriber servers. If you don't subscribe you can't use the subsciber servers, so everybody is happy. If anyone wants to use AOL (or whatnot) they can if they are willing to subscribe. That, IMHO, should show they are legitimate and not here to cause problems. If they get booted and want to come back and cause more problems, they can pay their money again 😉

That leaves just those on AOL/etc but refuse to subscribe, to them, tough.

Bill

 
I think part of it is that it is a pi$$ing contest between AOL and Anandtech. On that note alone we can't allow AOLers on here. They (AOL) chose the course of action for their members. But, if they want to apologize and cooperate.....
 
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