Re: [tlug] Making sure people get the message

[<stephen@example.com>]

Dave M G writes:

 > at least some measure of spamminess. Emails from hotmail got at least 1 
 > point on Spamassassins's scale (where a score of 5 means it's definitely 
 > spam).

A score of 5 means you can have some confidence that you're not
throwing away something that you would rather keep.  I personally
don't throw away anything less than a 10, and it's saved my butt on
two occasions (well, in one case it was a mass-mailing so I could have
gotten it from a colleague, but my boss doesn't save his mail
properly, so a request for resend would mean a trip to the doghouse
for me).

Unfortunately, there are lots of ISPs who will lower, rather than
raise, the threshold.

 > This is odd to me because emails through majordomo seem to be the ones 
 > that have the most trouble getting through to users. I know that emails 
 > from my majordomo lists are almost always blocked by Hotmail, and 
 > recently by Yahoo accounts and by mac.com.
 > 
 > Is the problem with mailing lists in general having a bad rep?

It's mailing lists in general, and it's only half that they have a bad
rep, and that proportion is dropping rapidly.  Among other things, AOL
recently pioneered the practice of charging multiple mailers for
reliable access to their customers.  They got a storm of protest, and
backed off the worst aspects of the proposal, but be sure that it will
reappear repeatedly in various guises, precisely because it's so easy
to claim that whatever it is is an antispam measure.  Obviously there
is strong incentive to drive the reliability of non-paying lists
through the floor.  I'm sure that if AOL pulls it off, Hotmail, Yahoo,
Home.com, mac.com, and maybe even gmail will dogpile on.

 > Is there anything that can be done about it?

Choose your subscribers well.  I have zero trouble with AOL, Hotmail,
and Yahoo.  I also have 3 (out of 842) subscribers to Hotmail and
Yahoo, none from AOL.  It's been at least three years since I've dealt
with a non-receipt complaint, although my subscribers send images
frequently, and audio and executables on an occasional basis.

The other way to choose your subscribers is according to willingness
to pay.  If you're making a profit off them, you can afford to pay
Danegeld.

See also http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.042.htp

The author of that FAQ was a founding member of AOL's postmaster team.