Malay2bowman misspoke:
Once they opened the site up to the general public, it's popularity took off and because of that, it turned into a cesspit. Basically another "eternal September" like when AOL users were let loose on Usenet in September of 1993, but even most "AOLers" weren't *that* low class. :-|
AOL didn't open the gates of Hell, flooding the Internet with clueless, unwashed dimwits, until September-ish1994.
I remember the horrifying event - and its timing - well, because LAN Times (a McGraw-Hill biweekly publication devoted mainly to servicing the Novell NetWare community) began publishing my @internet column in early April that year.
@internet began as a kind of "Baedeker's for the Internet," aimed at my peers in the Novell universe, who regularly assured me that they knew the Internet was important, but didn't have the time to figure out how to use it by themselves. It was a wildly successful feature that started my career in computer journalism - entirely by accident, after I cornered LAN Times' then-editor-in-chief, Susan Breidenbach, at the SFNUG Christmas party in December 1993 to urge her to initiate just such a regular feature. (Silly me, I expected that, were I successful in pitching the idea, she would assign it to one of her existing staffers, and I could bask in the virtuous feeling of having done a Good Thing for my fellow LAN administrators. Imagine my surprise when she replied, "It sounds like something that could be worth trying. So, when can I expect your first column?" instead.)
AOL's horrible, primitive Web browser (Windows-only, if you please) was nonetheless capable of allowing a million and a half entirely-unprepared newbies to stumble around on the Web without a clue among them about how to behave on the Internet. Overnight, it was as if what had been a relatively-civilized community of relatively-clueful, mostly-techie users was invaded by ignorant, barbarian hordes tromping through our marble palaces with muddy boots, blinking stupidly, and drooling all over the furniture.
It was an utterly classic illustration of the tragedy of the commons - and the experience has been branded in my soul, ever since ...