So I have a Netscape e-mail account. I’ve known about the changeover to AIM mail for quite a while. Now that the changeover has happened, I’m confronted with what’s possibly a really stupid move on my part.
Should I have known, or assumed, that this changeover would cause my Netscape e-mail inbox to be totally erased, or at least inaccessible (forevermore, as far as I can tell)? This is the first time I’ve ever had something like this happen to a service I used, and I did look over the above linked FAQ very carefully. I think what happened is that since I can still send and recieve through my Netscape address, I might’ve assumed too much.
So was I just being dumb, or did AOL not give me all the facts? I mean, it’s not the end of the world for me; I can still get mail from the old address, I have all the addys in my address book, and I don’t think any of the mails in the old inbox were earth-shatteringly irreplacable, but I’d still like to know if I was just dumb, or if this was less of my fault.
Ummm… Well, the mail suddenly appeared in my inbox hours afterwards. It still gave me a bad scare, so I suppose my point still applies a little… Otherwise…
I would have thought the emails in your inbox would be transferred over, too. But I usually play it safe, so I probably would have backed up anything important.
I’m glad you got your emails–some stories have a happy ending.
As a fellow Netscaper, I’ve been watching the Utter Chaos and Panic that this changeover has caused, and I have to say it’s dropped my estimation of the average email user by several points. Now, I’m not directly accusing you of all these points- this is more of a general rant- but some of it applies to your question.
They’ve made it quite clear, for quite some time and via numerous methods, that this would be occurring. So those folks who are all “!!!WE DIDN’T KNOW!!!1111” are idiots.
A major changeover of this type is not going to take place in a couple of hours. Anyone who’s a fan of TWOP has been sitting impatiently through their forum switchover, which was on a significantly smaller scale and took several days. To expect a massive changeover of this type to occur in an hour or two with no perceived inconvenience on the members’ part is ridiculously naive.
If you have SUPER-DUPER IMPORTANT EMAILS GOING BACK TWENTY YEARS, OMG!!, then for crying out loud back them up every now and then. Even if Netscape had lost every user’s email from the dawn of time, it wouldn’t be their fault- it would be yours for not having recognized that a server you have absolutely no control over isn’t a good place to entrust the most significant communcations of your existence.
Perhaps Netscape should have mentioned that the possibility of loss of emails was there. Perhaps they also should mention in their user agreement that a gopher could chew through the server casing and cause your emails to be lost, and maybe it’s a good idea to back stuff up that you’d be heartbroken to use.
In short: when you hear about someone needing to mess with your stuff, the best idea is to be paranoid. That way if everything turns out okay, it’s okay, and if it doesn’t, you still have your stuff.
Also, have a little patience.
And the folks who are pulling their hair out and threatening to sue because they’re in the middle of a big legal proceeding and now they can’t get to their work need to take some serious down time. :rolleyes: