LLLLL

[spatch]

The end of the ISCABBS, once the largest telnet-based BBS on the entire Interbutt, appears to be nigh. The story, which I'm quoting third-hand from a post on another telnet-based BBS, started when a sysop started deleting, er, salacious posts in a public forum.

The rest of the users were told to take their sex talk to the forum called Kama Sutra>, which is age verified. Unfortunately, very few users on ISCA are age verified, and none of the users in quesiton were. More than willing to play along, the users sought age verification, but the system, which requires snail mailing a photocopy of picture ID with birthdate, is defunct. Not to mention the IDs of all those who had been verified were lost years ago. This left the userbase in an impossible place, and the Sysops unwilling to do anything about it without the permission of the actual Iowa Student Computer Association, which hasn't had a meeting in over a year and only has two or three allegedly active members. Some upset users have attempted to contact the University of Iowa, which has only led to UofI being made aware of a machine on their network that they didn't even know existed anymore. It's the Hindenburg alright, and everyone on board is smoking cigarettes. ISCA has been down since 8am Central Time for unknown reasons...

This ending, which involves sysop powers, "sexxxy chat", bureaucratic mumbledy-peg and an administration which has forgotten about it, is more than fitting. I'm sure I'll be able to wax rhapsodic on the whole ISCA experience later on tonight, but for now, I'm just laffin.

Comments

[slit.livejournal.com]

The University of Iowa didn't even know about it?? Oh, that's fitting.

[allicat42.livejournal.com]

Say it isn't sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[stopword.livejournal.com]

given the propensity of the userbase to perpetuate lame pranks, I'd put money on this being someone taking advantage of known downtime to make people remember iscabbs exists.

[abbetaka.livejournal.com]

"... led to UoI being made aware of a machine on their network that they didn't even know existed anymore." That is bloody awesome.

I hope it's really gone. It seems kind of wrong that it still existed. Hrm.

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

I find it a little surprising that the university didn't know it existed, seeing how it was such a massive enterprise back in the day. You know, when there was a queue of a thousand people waiting to get in.

What is Bearwalker going to do for fun now?

Though there's a near-equivalent level of discourse on the IMDB forums.

My ISCA account died years ago, but this does make me a little sad.

[mhaille.livejournal.com]

It's back online.

giant.net

[abbetaka.livejournal.com]

This reminds me...

Is anyone here still in contact with Always/Suman?

I have several very old web accounts (whose password I don't know) registered to abbe@giant.net. Naturally I haven't had access to giant.net in ages, I don't even know if people still use it. But if they do, and if abbe still exists there, I would *love* to put in a .forward or somesuch.

If anybody happens to be able to hook me up, please let me know! Either putting Suman in contact with me or telling me if my user still exists on the box, or whatever.

Um, yep.

[glowkitty]

Man, how long has it been since my account died over there... I remember I stuck around for Y2K just to see the calendars roll over to 100, but I think that was about the end of it. I'm kind of surprised people still frequent it given everything else out there, but then again, I am logged into a MUD right now and I like it that way.

[coffeebeanben.livejournal.com]

!@H3;bJ'wwwwwww~
NO CARRIER

[quodlibetic.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the disproving, I still must reply:

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!