Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!convex.csd.uwm.edu!anthony From: anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Prodigy bashing. was: Re: mail to Prodigy Message-ID: <10748@uwm.edu> Date: 4 Apr 91 02:00:00 GMT References: <1991Mar26.205510.19869@linus.mitre.org> <1991Apr1.181020.8836@SanDiego.NCR.COM> Sender: news@uwm.edu Distribution: usa Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Lines: 53 In article <1991Apr1.181020.8836@SanDiego.NCR.COM> davel@booboo.SanDiego.NCR.COM (David Lord) writes: >In article rauscher@remus.rutgers.edu (Rich Rauscher) writes: >>Quite simply, prodigy sucks if you've ever used the internet. > Hardly a reasonable comparison. OK, Prodigy is not internet, never was > never will be, but it offers a host of usefull features that aren't > available here: stock quotes, headline news, gulf war updates (surprisingly > well done), Dow Jones news retrieval, and of course all the infamous > comercial services. Check out clarinet, the commercial news and information service that uses Usenet protocols. See biz.clarinet.* >>When I used it I remember: >> 1) No "chat" mode to talk to other users > I haven't noticed that here either, and probably wouldn't use it if it > was available. Internet Relay Chat, realtime communication with hundreds of users in dozens of countries (Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, France, Germany, etc) I use it nearly everyday and so do thousands of other people. See alt.irc for more information. [...] > Personally I've never run up against Prodigy's infamous censorship but > I don't use Prodigy to post notices complaining about Prodigy. Most of > the 'censorship' occured after Prodigy started charging for E-mail > services when a few very vocal people started seriously abusing the > system by flooding the BBS's and other user's personal mailboxes with > "Boycott Prodigy" messages. I for one was happy to see some of those > people get kicked off. I'll bet such tactics wouldn't have been dealt > with kindly here either. Admittedly Prodigy did go overboard for a time > in trying to squelch such practices. When they come after you aren't you going to wish there was someone left to support you? Although your own company may not like it when an employee posts negative comments about it, there isn't much that any organization can do about any postings that don't originate from within it. One thing to remember, is that there are two distinct systems here. There is the Internet (real time, high speed, global network), and Usenet (batch information distribution system). Usenet runs on top of the Internet and other networks (eg. UUCP dialup phone lines). It has no central control, you can't get kicked off, if someone is censoring your feed, you get a feed from someone else (like uunet). The Internet however is the metanetwork of regional networks around the world, each has their own operating policies. What happens to Prodigy users everyday cannot happen to Usenet users. The difference between Prodigy and the other commecial systems is that the Prodigy management wants to have total control over what their users can get out of and put into the system. There is no true freedom. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony