Photography - AOL discontinuing Newsgroup access !

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AOL discontinuing Newsgroup access !

AOL has informed users that in early 2005 that service will stop access to
Newsgroups. Bummer. Sure, I can get to Newsgroups using the new Google
"Groups" feature or thru IE.....but the AOL format for Usenet is much easier
to
read and manage. Send AOL a nasty email if this bothers you too.

AOL has claimed discontinuence of the service because out of the millions of
AOL subscribers only about a 1000 people actually use it and they deemed it
just wasn't worth the upkeep for so few. Possible legal issues as well when
someone posted copyrighted material on a newsgroup via AOL....... Pure Bullcrap
in my opinion !!

In another newsgroup someone had suggested using the keyword "Tell Us" to voice
complaints. As you meander around various newsgroups and elsewhere please
mention this channel of feedback to others. Even AOL users who may not be
familiar with newsgroups should voice a complaint. I may not watch much sports
on my TV from my cable provider, but when they take away access to one of those
channels and the monthly rate stays the same or even goes up I know I'm getting
hosed in one way or another. Someday I may want to watch sports and now I
can't.

I've signed on to Google beta newsgroups and it works, just not as easy to
quickly browse through my newsgroups as I'm used to with AOL. I looked at Agent
and Mozilla Thunderbird as alternatives and it doesn't appear they can be used
through AOL as they need either an NNTP server address which AOL doesn't
provide. Maybe someone knows a work around for this.

I took a look at AOL's own community boards as a possible alternative to the
usenet newsgroups and there is no comparison. There is nowhere the diversity of
participation and technical knowhow as you find on usenet newsgroups.

Mark.........

"You can't just turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again."

Remove "junkbloc" from address to respond by e-mail

"Sam Ormes" wrote in message
...
AOL has informed users that in early 2005 that service will stop access to
Newsgroups. Bummer. Sure, I can get to Newsgroups using the new Google
"Groups" feature or thru IE.....but the AOL format for Usenet is much
easier to
read and manage. Send AOL a nasty email if this bothers you too.

They'd probably notice it more if you switched ISPs than sending a nasty
email (too
easy just to filter them out...but try to filter out a drop in subscribers).

In article , ArcAxis
wrote:

AOL has claimed discontinuence of the service because out of the millions of
AOL subscribers only about a 1000 people actually use it and they deemed it
just wasn't worth the upkeep for so few.

I think that count has to be wrong, too low. One of the newsgroups I
subscibe to has at least 20 AOL users who post, probably more who lurk.
Many of them have posted trying to figure out what to do.

I've signed on to Google beta newsgroups and it works, just not as
easy to quickly browse through my newsgroups as I'm used to with AOL.
I looked at Agent and Mozilla Thunderbird as alternatives and it
doesn't appear they can be used through AOL as they need either an
NNTP server address which AOL doesn't provide. Maybe someone knows a
work around for this.

Your workaround is to dump AOL and get a high speed connection if cable
or DSL is available in your area.

--
Charles

George responds:

"Sam Ormes" wrote in message
...
AOL has informed users that in early 2005 that service will stop access to
Newsgroups. Bummer. Sure, I can get to Newsgroups using the new Google
"Groups" feature or thru IE.....but the AOL format for Usenet is much
easier to
read and manage. Send AOL a nasty email if this bothers you too.

They'd probably notice it more if you switched ISPs than sending a nasty
email (too
easy just to filter them out...but try to filter out a drop in subscribers).

I'm not sure anyone at AOL believes that subscriber loss is due to subscriber
dissatisfaction. Their membership rolls have been on a downward slide for some
time now, but I do believe they think it's a phase of the moon sort of thing,
so removing services won't hurt. And, in truth, it probably won't. I've been
planning to dump them for other reasons for a long time now. This just forces
me to act.

Charlie Self
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some
kind of federal program." George W. Bush, St. Charles, Missouri, November 2,
2000

[snip]

I've signed on to Google beta newsgroups and it works, just not as easy to
quickly browse through my newsgroups as I'm used to with AOL. I looked at Agent
and Mozilla Thunderbird as alternatives and it doesn't appear they can be used
through AOL as they need either an NNTP server address which AOL doesn't
provide. Maybe someone knows a work around for this.

A google search for "free nntp server" will provide you with plenty of
alternative usenet servers.

Try this, for example;

http://www.newzbot.com/

It may be more difficult to post using free servers.

Adey