9 replies to this topic

[admin]

Hi,

It is with a great deal of regret that we have had to temporarily block AOL users from using the Whatsonstage.com Forum. This is because one of the persistent abusers and posters of offensive material is an AOL customer and, because of the way this board works and how AOL works, we can only stop all AOL customers.

This affects about twenty people at the moment and to those people I am genuinely sorry but we have been left with no choice. AOL has been contacted and we have requested their help in tracking this person down but, as long as they keep changing their username etc and coming back there is little else we can do.

This is not an automated attack, like spam, which can be dealt with automatically, this is a sick individual who has targeted this board and its users. As soon as we have tracked this person and taken the necessary action against them we will open the board back up to AOL users.

I can only apologise for the inconvenience but we cannot tolerate the behaviour exhibited by this person. In the meantime the only thing I can suggest is that you log onto the interenet using a different ISP. I know many of you will not be able to do this but we have to think of the many, even if it is a problem for the few.

Many thanks,

David

[teaboy]

Understandable, but how will the AOL users know if they can't access this message?!

[Viceroy]

They can read the forum - they just cannot post for the moment.

[foxa]

I suppose you had reasons for blocking all AOL users and as there has been a lack of outcry, maybe I am one of the only regular posters who has AOL has their internet provider.  I am now posting this from a friend's laptop since I can no longer post from my PC, just to ask how long the total banning of AOL users was going to go on?  I first knew there was a problem when I tried for about 20 minutes to post something witty and pithy (the moment's gone) and simply got a series of error messages.  I emailed asking what was wrong and received no reply.  I finally happened upon this notice.   Has the culprit been located (I assure you it wasn't me!)?  

[moritz]

It is a bit off, but if its what it takes to stop the profane night-time postings then so be it. I thought I'd been banned or something when it said I was not permitted to post on this board. Had I bothered reading the  'General' board I would have found out the reason a whole lot quicker! Do I pay a dial up rate if I use MSN instead of AOL?

[Colourarc]

Testing!


WooHoo...........I hope it's not a fluke!


Cx

[dan]

It's a return!

[foxa]

Testing here too.

[admin]

Hi All,

Yes, you are right, it is back on. Lets see if the person or persons have got bored and gone away. To answer a couple of the questions emailed to me:

1) Would registration have prevented this?
No, we introduced registration before we resorted to this, the person concerned changed their address and username and just re registered, we could not control this.

2) Can we not just ban one AOL user and let the rest keep posting
No, we tried to do this. Some service providers are more helpful than others in this regard. AOL is not one of them.

3) What happens if they come back?
We may have to resort to the same thing again. We have contacted AOL about this and asked for a solution but there is no simple one.

I hope this helps.

All the best,

David

[Montmartre]

Brilliant news. (Testing)