On Sunday, February 23, 2003, at 07:00 PM, Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. wrote:
AOL has many things going on right now..their new software allows a user to report something as spam by simply clicking on a button, which is, as I understand it, right next to other buttons on which the user would otherwise click.
yes, sometimes upwards of 50 times in a row.
As a result, AOL users are suddenly generating large numbers of spam reports, sometimes unintentionally, often without something being spam.
Yes, and it seems AOL believes them, too. at least based on my email with them today.
And, obviously, their inbound spam control is sub-optimal too
which is why that user just gave up and started pushing the "spam" button without looking at the e-mail, in fact, because her in-box is so overful with the stuff it's driving her crazy.
(that said, getting it just right is something which no large U.S. ISP of which I'm aware has yet done).
so why is it that I get almost no spam to my earthlink account and I don't see continuing, loud, unhappy noises like this from earthlink users? They're not AS big as AOL, but they're big enough that the scaling issues simply aren't that important.
In fact, our having our licensees whitelisted at AOL is one of the most oft-cited "the thing which convinced me"s for list owners signing up with us - not having to try to deal with trying to get one's confirmed opt-in through to AOL users
unless, of course, your e-mail is part of the ~20% that seems to disappear in their SMTP systems without any trace, whether it's list mail, personal mail, or whatever.
(hoops through which you *shouldn't* have to jump when running a confirmed opt-in list!) seems to be a big deal. :-(
Or trying to send confirmations for an opt-in list, which I've seen disappeared by AOL. Or sending first class (i.e. me to you) e-mail, which also disappears in a documentedly depressing volume.
AOL's new "report spam" stuff is an utter disaster. Whoever thought it up ought to be shot. That they're actually paying attention to it is silly, given the high volume of mistakes they get with it.
-- Chuq Von Rospach, Architech [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/
IMHO: Jargon. Acronym for In My Humble Opinion. Used to flag as an opinion
something that is clearly from context an opinion to everyone except the
mentally dense. Opinions flagged by IMHO are actually rarely humble. IMHO.
(source: third unabridged dictionary of chuqui-isms).
