DECOMMISSIONED?

“It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:32)

America On Line (which I will call “AOL” for the rest of this posting) decided to celebrate April Fools Day by having the AOL logo on their website appear upside down, then turn into LOL, then become AOL with a foolish jester hat on top of it. I really wasn’t amused because March 31 was not a very good AOL day for me.

I’ve been an AOL subscriber since my beginning of going on-line in April 1996, although at present I’m connected to high-speed internet at both my office and at home through Verizon and then I get on AOL through their website. In the old days, AOL was very user friendly, especially for people who knew nothing about computers. AOL also had good customer service and numerous features. (For instance, AOL invented “Instant Message” technology and in its early days, it was only available on AOL.) My blog was originally set up as an “AOL Public Journal” in February 2006. Another feature on AOL were just scads and scads AOL Message Boards. I mean you NAME the topic, and there was a message board for it. There were numerous message boards for “faith groups”...just NAME a “religion” and it had a message board. I first checked out the Assemblies of God message board probably about ten years ago. I’d take a look at it from time to time just to see if there was anything interesting on it. Up until late July of last year, I’d probably only posted on the AOL Assemblies of God message board about 5 or 6 times. Some of you know that I went through a difficult emotional time during the final 6 months of 2008. There was a lot of stuff I was trying to figure out. I posted a question on the AOL Assemblies of God message board, and got some replies, especially a couple of very poignant ones from W. Martin Hughes, an AG pastor (and “Presbyter” which is a leader over other pastors) from rural Kentucky. Martin also sent me some e-mails, and we began communicating quite a bit by e-mail. I also met Tony, an AG pastor from northern California. Tony e-mailed me his phone number and we had a long talk one evening. I discovered there were 6 or 7 people who posted frequently at the message board, and once in awhile someone else would pop in with a question or a comment.

I was one of those teenagers who got into the Citizens Band radio craze back in the early 1970s. In those days before home computers, the C.B. was a way for lots of kids to communicate each evening (even though 75% of our communications did not meet F.C.C. guidelines). This AOL message board reminded me a lot of the C.B. radio days of almost forty years ago. Well, why is it that good things don’t seem to last? Last October I was quite shocked when AOL decided to pull the plug on quite a bit of what they offered on AOL People Connection. That included all blogs (which they called “Journals”) and quite a few message boards. I’d say at least half of all AOL message boards were eliminated at the end of October 2008 along with the blogs. They set up a deal with blogspot where you could transfer your blog along with its archives at that time. Overall, that’s worked out well for me. My blog LOOKS much better on blogspot, and it has a much easier URL address. The Assemblies of God message board people were kind of sweating the situation out. There were rumors that our board could disappear at any time.

My son Jon actively posts on the AOL “Lost” television show message board. Jon told me a couple of weeks ago that the “Lost” board was notified that AOL was discontinuing all television show boards in the near future. On the Assemblies of God board, we heard nothing. On March 31 the Assemblies of God board was gone. Martin Hughes e-mailed me along with several others to say he just couldn’t get on the board. I tried and tried as did others, and NOTHING. I finally (through a convoluted on-line process) accessed a LIVE on-line AOL customer service person. She identified herself as “Maureen”. I asked about the AOL Assemblies of God message board. She had to “check” on it. Maureen got back to me and wrote that “it appears the Assemblies of God message board has been decommissioned”. I sent a mass e-mail to the people from the board, and felt sad. One wrote that he was working on setting us up as an “e-mail group” elsewhere on-line. Last night, just on a whim, I tried to get on the Assemblies of God board, and IT WAS BACK! I sent an excited e-mail to the folks from the board. My son checked and the “Lost” board was also back.

Today, the boards are GONE again. Now you can see why I was not amused by the AOL April Fool’s joke. It’s true that if the AOL Assemblies of God message board IS gone...or if it’s soon to go, we CAN find a meeting place somewhere else on-line. It just seems so COLD however. While the board WAS back last night, I posted an entry titled something like AOL ARE YOU READING THIS?
I suggested that if they need to temporarily or permanently shut down the boards they should at least post something letting us know...AND they should at least let their customer service people know! I’m one of those people who stuck with AOL when EVERYBODY said I was crazy to! I’ve had my bad experiences with AOL, too. The WORST is that my account has been SUSPENDED three times. The last time was about 18 months ago. It’s awful when they suspend your account. You have to phone them (and these days THAT’S quite a feat)...you talk to somebody in India and have to set up a new password and read a condescending e-mail about how you violated AOL community standards. My last violation of AOL standards was beginning a mass e-mail and asking that people forward it on. It wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t a chain letter. It wasn’t something stupid or foolish- in fact, it was Christ-centered and uplifting, but TECHNICALLY by asking people to forward it on, I “violated AOL community standards”. I have started a number of mass e-mails since then, but I’ve tried to send them to under 50 people at a time (the one that tripped them off went to 102 people) and I NEVER ask them to forward it on (even though I VERY much want them to!). I mentioned much of that in my posting last night. It seemed to me if AOL was reading my e-mail, even though I’m one of millions, then they could certainly communicate with people on their message board!

So, I don’t know if the message board has been decommissioned or recommissioned! But I definitely DID make an “AOL People Connection” that was very helpful to me during some turbulent months, and THAT’S NO APRIL FOOL!