Today it has been brought to my attention that I have erred in lumping all AOL users with "full mailboxes" into one category. It seems that AOL, when it is having problems with its hardware or software has devised a new subterfuge to escape culpability. If the servers at AOL are having problems and cannot accept email for users, Steve Case and his gnome clones have decided to "bounce" the email with the message, "User has a Full Mailbox". This makes it look like the blame is with the users, not with AOL. I have lambasted AOL users lately for not keeping their mailboxes emptied and avoiding this problem. What did I find out? I was unfair in my accusa- tions. I NOW know beyond doubt that many users' mail has bounced for the "full mailbox" reason, when in fact this was a lie from AOL. I have done some detective work and found out that some users, who had just emptied their mailboxes, had mail bounced within FIVE MINUTES and their mailboxes were really empty. It took some tests and some experimentation with the cooperation of some local AOL users, but we have proved our case beyond doubt. The upshot of this is, if you are an AOL user and you receive a message from RootsWeb stating you have been unsubscribed from such and such List, and you have no idea why, the answer is that we received all email to you as "bounces" from AOL. NOW YOU USERS MUST USE YOUR JOINT POWER AS CONSUMERS TO CONTACT AOL AND FORCE THEM TO STRAIGHTEN UP THEIR MESS. The Internet community cannot continue to operate in chaos, chaos which is, in a large part, due to AOL's greed. There are, of course, other major nation-wide servers out there with some of the same problems as AOL. If you consumers don't put pressure on them to provide the excellent service you deserve they will NEVER change anything. Thank God I have been fortunate enough during the past years to have initially chosen a server that has no such problems. It was just a matter of luck; however, had I chosen one that gave me prob- lems, you can rest assured that I would not have hesitated to change. Not for a minute! AND, I had been an AOL user almost from its inception, not for email, but because of the availability of files. I never relied on AOL for any email. I quit AOL because of lousy service, and the pathetic code written by their software people for the AOL installation program, which crashed my system big-time one time too many. AOL users, I publicly apologize for angrily attacking you for your full mailboxes. Many of you were NOT to blame, as I now know. In spite of the above apology, some of you HAVE been guilty of not keeping your mailboxes emptied and in the spirit of renewed cooperation, how about making an effort to remedy the situation. Check out the Flash Session utility in AOL that I have mentioned here before. Regards, SgtGeorge Listowner ==== DURMAN Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe from DURMAN, send an e-mail message to: DURMAN-L-request@rootsweb.com (for individual messages) DURMAN-D-request@rootsweb.com (for Digest mode) Subject: unsubscribe In the body include only one word: unsubscribe (Turn OFF your signature file when sending this command)