Talk:Shell account/Archive 1

Request before adding
Request below on this talk page before adding to the historical list.

The vast majority of us have always agreed that no further additions are to be made to the historical list without approval here. As such, no further explanations are required on this talk page when you remove a non-historical provider from the historical list.

-Dren (talk) 08:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't understand this: the vast majority of whom? At first glance this reads like a statement by someone who thinks that a group of editors "owns" this article, and can dictate "rules" as to how the article is edited. I hope this is not the correct interpretation, as this would be totally contrary to Wikipedia policy (see Ownership_of_articles). Can someone explain what it really does mean? JamesBWatson (talk) 18:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thats pretty much how I'm seeing it. I'm about ready to archive this portion of the talk page as this does not reflect consensus. What I uncovered in digging through the edit history seemed to be an attempt to hijack this article after List of free shell providers was deleted. --Tothwolf (talk) 19:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There are no rules. The original comment is over a year old now and no longer applies anyway. I believe Dren understands Wikipedia's policies a bit better now and is grateful for other contributions. Although I am by no means commenting on his behalf. --Hm2k (talk) 20:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Individual providers
Moving from main article to here: --Interiot 23:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * As there are already many lists of various shells providers out there on the net, it might be better to add lists of free shells providers to this site, rather then adding individual providers here, because there are a huge number of individual providers already, and there are already sites devoted to providing up to date lists of these, such as bylur.net for free providers and the eggfaq page for commercial providers. (posted by 213.121.151.178)

Please do not add any other individual providers without getting permission on this talk page first. There are so many individual providers out there, it will be much more helpful if you can add lists of free shell providers to this site. Thanks!

-(Dren 07:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC))


 * To request that editors discuss the question here and attempt to find consensus is fine, but to tell editors they have to get "permission" looks rather like a claim of ownership, as noted above. A different form of words might be better. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

See what I said in 2006... -Dren (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

List of Historical free shells
I host unixclan.no-ip.org, which, under various domains (unixclan.net, the1.no-ip.org, etc), has been around for four years and has always been free. It has over 5,000 registered users.

Someone edited the link to this site to falsly point to a non-free service: See Here Dren, correctly, removed this link for not being historically free. However, I think that unixclan should qualify. If there are any objections, please reply here. If there are not any, I will add my link back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delirium of disorder (talk • contribs)

It certainly has not been around for 4 years, and certainly does not have 4,000 registered users. The whois records of the domains that you own show that they have been around for about a year. -jack

Jack: When I started, I didn't even have any domain name. Users just accessed me through my IP address. I also used a different domain name: the1.no-ip.org previously. unixclan.net also points to my shell server. The previous unixclan.net site was a somewhat different group/service that also offered shells, I was also a leading member of their network. See: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://unixclan.net archive.org does not index sites that are subdomains of the no-ip service so my shell service cannot be accessed through them. As for the number of users. I do admit that I have far more registered users than active users, but this does not make my previous post false. There are currently 6415 valid logins that have been added to my system, feel free to get an account for yourself and check it out! Delirium of disorder 21:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This archive only goes back 3 years, and that isn't enough to qualify you as historically free. Almost all of the other free providers listed have been around since the 80's and 90's. Please do not add your link back without getting permission on this talk page first. -(Dren 07:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC))

Since the user who removed my link has a history of bad edits ( see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:12.163.10.190) I plan to add my link back unless further objection is posted here.Delirium of disorder 21:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed some non-historical links, objections noted above. -(Dren 07:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC))

Removed one of the same non-historical links I removed in 2006, objections noted above. -Dren (talk) 08:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the link to Systemshell.net, why? because all evidence gathered from the whois database shows that they have been out there since september 2006 and not since 1998, plus I've checked out there paypal account it exists only since 3 month and they have only one verified buyer (which probably was paypal itself paying them a bonus , I'm talking out of experience because I've a reputation of one buyer as well despite that I didn't sell anything) To be honest, I'm slowly getting the impression that this systemshell.net is basically not a serious business if not even a hoax! not only are they listing themselves on this article as a free historical provider but also do they present wrong and misleading data about their uptime status, the person in charge a mysterious "spfy" would say if asked that his server has been running for 30 days , and that for some strange reason he just had to reboot it today , not knowing that I had been monitoring his service for the last month and the uptime status didn't even exceed 2 -3 days.

Outdated links
I can't find any list or voting system on "Mutebox Free Shell List", maybe they changed to be a provider?

Also, MLG3 and Shellsnet has closed, so those links should probably be removed. // Independence 18:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the outdated links now. // Independence

Requests for additions to the historical list
Here's where you request to add your *historical* provider to the historical list...

ClueNet
User:Cobi has added ClueNet to the list of shell providers. They are not historical or persistant. The article linked from here has the tone of an advertisement/PR piece. LordKenTheGreat 08:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did add ClueNet to the list of shell providers for a couple of reasons: Cobi 03:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) "Since a list of current free shell providers keeps getting deleted, this is the best place to list notable providers." - the comment on the page right above the list of free shell providers.
 * 2) ClueNet is persistent, they have existed for a year or so, and before that, they existed as two seperate free shell providers which existed for several years before they merged to create ClueNet.  So, while ClueNet didn't exist under that name for more than a year or so, they have existed under different names for quite a while.
 * 3) I am sorry if the ClueNet page looks like an advertisement.  It wasn't intended to look that way.  I will try to fix it.

I'm sorry for removing it from the list, I couldn't find statistics for how long it existed and the article looked somewhat suspicious. Feel free to improve your article, and welcome to Wikipedia! LordKenTheGreat 04:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have rewritten the ClueNet article, attempting to make it look less like an advertisement and more like encyclopedic content. If you believe the advertisement error has been corrected, please remove the advert template. Also, if you believe it is notable enough to be listed on the Shell account article under "Historical and persistant free shell account providers," please let me know. Thanks, Cobi 07:27, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that the article no longer appears to be an advertisement, and that it is fits the requirements of "historical and free", feel free to remove the advert template and list it on the shell account article. Be bold! LordKenTheGreat 08:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Systemshell
Systemshell doesn't offer a valid sign up. It is currently disabled on their website. Prunk (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The Well
The WELL I don't care if you offered free shells for a month in 1985 to help get your service developed, that doesn't make you a free shell provider. This section is for HISTORICALLY free providers, meaning free throughout history: free when they started, and still free today. You only offer PAID services. Don't try adding this again.

Dren (talk) 04:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Not a notable shell provider. Never heard of you ever. Salon.com??? Magazine site? What does this have to do with shells?

Dren (talk) 08:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You do not own this article. Please stop removing sourced text. --Tothwolf (talk) 09:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Shell providers
I think it is meaningless to list current shell providers on this page, others than those which have been providing shell accounts for the last 10 years or so, becouse such a list was allready made list of free shell providers, it was quite good and was later purged from Wikipedia. This is why there are third party links to the sites, which contain such a comparison of active shell providers. Prunk 20:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear. -Dren (talk) 08:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

About listing of shell providers and Cluenet: we had a list of 20+ shell providers before, most of which had been online for much longer than Cluenet I think. It seems kinda unfair to remove all those, and then just list Cluenet? If everyone is going to start to add their links to this page instead, it's just going to get messy. Either take the old list page back, or remove All links to shell providers from this page! Independence 10:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed from the historical list. Domain cluenet.org was created in 2007. Prunk 12:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ClueNet is a merge of two older providers. Chules.net, one of the two providers that merged, was registered in 2004, and was in operation prior to that.  C&H Services, the other provider that merged, renamed a few times prior to merging with Chules.net to create ClueNet and all of the domains that it used have since expired in favor of ClueNet.org, so I can't get a date for its registration.  Thanks.  -- Cobi(t 07:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

General Comments
This article is fine now, can you guys please leave the list of *historically* free shell providers alone? Unless you somehow find some shell providers in some old manuscripts in a cave on Sanskrit lets leave the list as it is OK?

If you want to improve the article, add links to existing free shell lists or work on finding citations and improving the article's accuracy.

There are a lot of shell providers out there who would like to have their name on the list. If everyone gets to add their name to the list it will just be a big mess full of dead links, like most of the free shell lists out there.

-Dren (talk) 08:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The definition
I have a problem with the definition: A shell account is a personal account that gives a user access to a Unix shell on a remote server [...]. This is too wide a definition – you'd never call your user account on your own Unix system a shell account, or your user account at work. I have only encountered "shell account" in the context of an ISP providing a Unix login (remotely, naturally) in addition to other remote services such as PPP and FTP. Can this be clarified somehow?

I also have to mention that halfway through the article starts dealing exclusively with free shell account providers. I know it was more common back in the mid-1990s for ISPs to provide Unix logins, but surely you still get one from many web hosting places?

JöG (talk) 05:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)