Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 12, 1995                   TAG: 9504120064
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON                                  LENGTH: Medium

AT AMERICA ONLINE IT'S BYE-BYE LOVE

Fans of grunge-rock singer Courtney Love were too rowdy for America Online, which took the unprecedented step of deleting their forum after they repeatedly broke the computer network's rules.

America Online suspended the Hole forum, a computer message board devoted to Love's band, on Saturday because of a high volume of violations of the network's terms of service, including a death threat, USA Today reported Tuesday.

America Online spokeswoman Margaret Ryan said she couldn't provide specifics of the threat or identify the computer user who made it. She said the person's membership has been terminated.

Ryan said she believes it's the first time a message board has been closed down at the Vienna-based on-line service, which has hundreds of such forums and more than 2 million subscribers.

``It's generally not our policy to do that,'' she said.

America Online's rules prohibit profanity and racial, ethnic, religious or sexual slurs, not to mention criminal activity.

In January, the network, the country's largest with about 1.5 million subscribers, booted users who sent child pornography over the network.

The computer service stressed then that it does not monitor private electronic mail sent over the network, but does follow up on users' complaints about offensive material.

The Hole forum, in the service's ``alternative rock topics'' area, contained numerous messages detailing Love's relationship with the late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide a year ago Saturday.