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Herb Leventhal
April 8, 2000, 06:02 PM
For at least the past 3 years I have been an active participant in the Compuserve Firearms Forum. In fact the Firearms Forum is the reason I subscribe to Compuserve. Three nights ago I Clicked on to the Firearms Forum and guess what? FORUM CLOSED.
I was stunned and could not believe that the company wouldn't have the decency to publish an advanced explanation as to why the Forum would be closed. I've called customer service and requested an explanation. Nothing yet! Anybody out there with any information? I would appreciate any info before I cancel my subscription to Compuserve
Herb

Mal H
April 8, 2000, 06:09 PM
Moving this to the General Discussion forum. Look for it there...

Rich Lucibella
April 8, 2000, 07:51 PM
Herb-
Interesting news. I used to be a regular. When I announced the opening of TFL about a year and a half ago, they locked my Membership so that I couldn't enter. Never did receive a response to my emails. In any case, I'm sorry to see it close....if they really want to attack a problem there, they ought to close the Dem Forum....dangerous stuff!
Rich

Oatka
April 8, 2000, 10:48 PM
Shift your pro-gun posts to some other threads. They'll probably end up locking you out, which will give you a good excuse to bail out.

mbott
April 9, 2000, 07:27 AM
Frankly, I'm surprised CI$ allowed that forum to remain as long as it had. I had the CI$ service about 5 years ago, but left when I found myself spending much too much money there: found the web, instead. I though for sure that the end was near when AOL purchased CI$. I guess I'm kind of glad it was able to last as long as it did.

As to not getting a reply, it's very possible that those who would want to, can't and those who can, won't.

Mike
ex. 71640,172

Sodbuster
April 9, 2000, 08:41 AM
After hearing of AOL's purchase of CompuServe and AOL's stance against the 2nd Amendment, I switched to a different ISP. It's a local one that supports the Second. Of course, in Wyoming the gun grabbers are highly outnumbered.

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Hoka-hey

Greg G
April 9, 2000, 10:52 AM
Herb,
I was a member of CompuServe's Firearms forum for 4 years before they pulled the plug. Around Oct.'98 someone, it may have been Rich, posted that a new forum was starting up called the Firing Line and gave the address. I checked it out and joined right then. I have continued to be a lurker on the CServe Firearms forum but never posted much. I have found this forum to be far superior to the Firearms forum and have spent most of my time here. Stick around here a while and you won't miss the Firearms forum. In case you don't know, some of the old gang can be found on the message board at www.outdoors.net. (http://www.outdoors.net.) I have posted some there but it is painfully slow and the format for viewing threads is inefficient.
I plan to pull the plug on CServe as I have not gotten a direct answer from them on what happened to the Firearms forum. I sent them two inquiries and after my second, they sent me a message stating that the forums are run by independant contractors and they have no knowledge of why a particular forum is discontinued. Well, that's crap. If I was running Compuserve, I would want to have a handle on everything going on with the forums as that is a large part of what they are all about. They sent me a customer satifaction survey after the inquiry and I burned them pretty good. I ordered a cd for a Mindspring membership, if someone can recommend better I would like to be told, and as soon as I get up and going I will cancel my Compuserve membership and delete all their files in order to get the stink off my hard drive. :mad:
Anyway good luck, Herb


[This message has been edited by Greg G (edited April 09, 2000).]

johnwill
April 9, 2000, 05:46 PM
I'm just another refugee from the CIS FIREARMS forum. :) I think that CIS has indeed gone PC on us, it's the only rational explanation that makes any sense. I believe that AOL will be closing all the forums in the near future, at least to people with off-line readers. They're trying to get everyone over to web view so they can bombard them with ads.

Guy B. Meredith
April 9, 2000, 07:05 PM
How many Compu$erve Firearms Forum veterans are here? That forum is the only thing that kept me on Compu$erve for the last year or so I was there.

Glad to see you here, Herb. I'd sure like to hear from Mark Freeman, Mike Irwin and some of the others. You all gave me my start in learning about shooting and I appreciate it to no end.

Just can't tolerate their kitch and commercialism. When AOL bought them, I knew my tenure would be limited as the only value I've seen in AOL is providing chat rooms for giggly girls to contact sleazy sexual preditors.

rms/pa
April 10, 2000, 07:25 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Herb Leventhal:
For at least the past 3 years I have been an active participant in the Compuserve Firearms Forum. In fact the Firearms Forum is the reason I subscribe to Compuserve. Three nights ago I Clicked on to the Firearms Forum and guess what? FORUM CLOSED.
I was stunned and could not believe that the company wouldn't have the decency to publish an advanced explanation as to why the Forum would be closed. I've called customer service and requested an explanation. Nothing yet! Anybody out there with any information? I would appreciate any info before I cancel my subscription to Compuserve
Herb[/quote]

the story i got was , the CI$ firearms forum was operated by the GO OUTDOORS group
which recieved a small part of your compuslurp payments based on the traffic
from CI$.
AOL when it went to the web based forum system stopped any form of compensation to the forum operators as of 4/1/00

thus the death of the CI$ firearms forum and others.

other forums have had similar problems with AOL.

rms/pa

Matt VDW
April 10, 2000, 08:18 AM
I, too, am a refugee from the old Firearms Forum on CompuServe.

The first warning sign came a couple of years ago when CIS banned online ads for the sale or purchase or firearms. At that point, I knew that things were headed downhill and I abandoned CIS altogether.

Mark Freburg
April 10, 2000, 10:41 AM
Here are the facts. I was the Compuserve Firearms Forum Manager up until its demise. I worked for the folks who held the contract with Compuserve to run the forum. We were told by Compuserve a couple of months prior that our contract would not be renewed and that Compuserve was taking back the forums we ran as of April 1st.

We were not told what would happen to the forums or anything else. The forums stayed open without any management for two plus days and were shut down around 6pm EST on April 3rd, with no explanation whatsoever.

It seems most former forum members have joined either THE FIRING LINE, THE OUTDOORS NET, or both.

Hey Compuserve... :p

Dark Avenger
April 10, 2000, 12:17 PM
I too am a CIS user for about 10 years. I am looking for a good pro-2nd ISP to replace it A.S.A.P. Can you recommed any in MA ?

Jeff Thomas
April 10, 2000, 12:37 PM
Hey Mark - welcome to TFL! And, thanks for the info.

Regards from AZ

Guy B. Meredith
April 10, 2000, 01:06 PM
Mark!!

Great to hear from you!

As a 'by the way' I should tell you I finally bought a Hornady Lock-N-Load AP. You got me interested in taking a look at it, but I have deferred the expense by purchasing from a member of our local club who has a FFL for reloading. He is going out of business and I saw an AP on sale for $250.

A gentleman on another forum told me how he has adopted a Lyman M-Expander insert to allow the Hornady powder measure to do the case expansion to free up a station for the RCBS lockout die with separate seat and crimp dies and I will probably follow suit.

Mark Freburg
April 11, 2000, 03:30 PM
Thanks, Jeff. :)

Guy--nice to see you again, too. :) Sounds like your L&L is set up fine. Post a message in the reloading section if you don't mind and LMK the details on using the Lyman M dies with your press--I have the same powder measure set up on my P-J....

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Mark

papercut
April 12, 2000, 12:17 PM
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dark Avenger:
I too am a CIS user for about 10 years. I am looking for a good pro-2nd ISP to replace it A.S.A.P. Can you recommed any in MA ? [/quote]

DA,

I don't know much about them other than what's on their web site, but an ISP called Cyber77 claims to be RKBA-friendly. Second Amendment Sisters' web site ( http://www.sas-aim.org/ ) links to a "special offer" with Cyber77 ( http://cyber77.com/sas.htm ).

If you try them and like them, let us know!


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"There's not much comfort in the fact that crime is down 6 percent. So instead of 100 criminals targeting you, now there are only 94. Whoop-dee-doo." -- Paxton Quigley

Mike / Tx
April 12, 2000, 07:55 PM
I, as some of the other refugees might recognize, am also from the CIS bunch. Well I decided to just pop around for a while and having joined this group I'll most likely post here. I have a lot to contribute and don't mind jumpin in tha middle of somethin or way after the end.(GG) Sometimes it takes me a while to get back and check up on things.

I am mostly interested in hunting rifles, pistols, and reloading to which I have 25+ yrs. under my belt. I may be young by some of you folks standard but I generally walk the walk.

I am looking forward to getting to know you'all and shareing ideas. It's just nice to find a place that is as hospitable as this place seems to be.

Most likely you will find me in tha relaoding area as thats my most knowledgable area.

Mike / Tx

[This message has been edited by Mike / Tx (edited April 12, 2000).]

Art Eatman
April 12, 2000, 11:39 PM
Mike / Tx: Welcome aboard! Any number can play--and usually do!

:), Art

TCHall/NC
April 13, 2000, 12:15 PM
Hi Mark, John, all

We CI$ Firearms Forum refugees are finally finding high ground and starting to recover it seems.

Jim Longley is tearing them up on the CI$ Political Debate Forum. Amazing what facts versus opinions looks like to lurkers&lt;G&gt;

I'm looking forward to the future with a supportative place to post our discussions. It should be interesting to see!

Ted

Tom Matiska
April 13, 2000, 08:19 PM
Add my name to the refugee list. I reduced my Cserve account down to the $9.99 minimum and will maintain it only long enough to let my new email address be known.


[email protected]

bullseyekp
April 14, 2000, 01:31 PM
Herb,

This is my first time to post anything here but I will tell you that all the responses regarding CompuServe's and AOL's stance on the 2nd Amendment are absolutely true. AOL, along with its newly captured Time Warner, stands to do nothing but work for the anti-gun community's agenda. Take this from a person who works for AOL. Its a good job for me because of the stock grants, benefits, and college reimbursement. So I stay, but only until I can afford to leave.

However, I absolutley despise the company for some things it stands for and some policies it has. IE no weapons allowed in my workplace--a call center that would be a perfect target for some thug going on a mass shooting spree. Not being able to defend myself at work is annoying but so are many other ideals of the company that I don't support. CompuServe is just one of AOL's many children and has to abide by the ignorant rules of its mothership AOL.

To put it bluntly, if you don't like the rules, play another game. Of course, I can't officially denounce the mothership (lol!) due to job security reasons. But, if possible, DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON SOMETHING THAT WORKS TO TAKE YOUR RIGHTS AWAY!!! As soon as I graduate and get a real job, I won't be a member of such a service.

My 2 cents.

Be Safe and Shoot Straight!!

bullseyekp
April 14, 2000, 01:34 PM
By the way, we have all heard the stories of gun retailers getting their AOL accounts cancelled due to the "pornographic nature" of guns!!?

Also, Herb, I may be able to help you contact CompuServe. Send me email.

Be Safe and Shoot Straight!!

kframe19
April 15, 2000, 02:29 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Guy B. Meredith:
How many Compu$erve Firearms Forum veterans are here? That forum is the only thing that kept me on Compu$erve for the last year or so I was there.

Glad to see you here, Herb. I'd sure like to hear from Mark Freeman, Mike Irwin and some of the others. You all gave me my start in learning about shooting and I appreciate it to no end.

Just can't tolerate their kitch and commercialism. When AOL bought them, I knew my tenure would be limited as the only value I've seen in AOL is providing chat rooms for giggly girls to contact sleazy sexual preditors.[/quote]

Guy,

You're hearing from me now! :D

Sorry, I just found this thread; I didn't see it before this evening, although it obviously predates my participation here.

I like this service a lot, but I just wish there was some way to determine if anyone has posted a direct reply to one of my posts.

It's a real pain to have to try to remember what I posted where (what with so many active threads), and go back and scan for answers. --Mike