Lost E-mails -- Great Article!

[Corey Cohron RIP]

Bill and I were wondering recently how so many e-mails could be getting lost along the way -- both coming to AND from us. So we did a search. We found lots of interesting information, but this one seemed to be the clearest and most informative:

Why Does E-Mail Get Lost? (http://ask-leo.com/why_does_email_get_lost.html)

I miss the good old days when we'd at least get bounceback messages...:sigh:

[Jackpine]

Great read, Corey! Makes perfect sense too.

This would explain in particular why many members with "hotmail" addresses and to a lesser extent "gmail" addresses never seem to be able to reach you. Their address looks too "spammy". And, when you try to send a "blanket" message to several members telling them their tunes are ready you look like a spammer too. But you really don't have time to send "individual" messages, do you?

And, (this is slightly off the subject) but it may apply - if a member has not enabled Private Messaging, he won't be reachable that way either. And even if PMs ARE enabled, does everyone notice the little Private Message notification in the upper right corner of the forum window? How many members enable the "popup" or email notification of a PM in their UserCP controls?

It's easy to feel ignored when, in reality, you've simply made it hard for anyone to reach you.

- Jack

[Caforddude]

Great read, Corey! Makes perfect sense too.
This would explain in particular why many members with "hotmail" addresses and to a lesser extent "gmail" addresses never seem to be able to reach you. Their address looks too "spammy". And, when you try to send a "blanket" message to several members telling them their tunes are ready you look like a spammer too. But you really don't have time to send "individual" messages, do you?
- Jack

I am NOT a computer expert but I have to be honest I am not buying the "Looks Like Spam" explanation that article professes.

I have a corporate email acct and I get email from every kind of email address known to man including foreign email addresses. In fact my email address is a government email address subject to discovery in open court so we have some of the strictest email policies and filtration I can imagine. I get text, pics, video etc and while I have had some emails sent to the spam folder I do not recall ever not getting them at all.

I am personally of the mindset this is an ISP issue and not an end user issue (either on the customer side or on Bill and Corey's part)

In my mind there is no plausible explanation for either a customer or Bill/Corey lying or misleading about email issues. I think the issues are real and again think it is an ISP issue.

[Jackpine]

I am NOT a computer expert but I have to be honest I am not buying the "Looks Like Spam" explanation that article professes.

I have a corporate email acct and I get email from every kind of email address known to man including foreign email addresses. In fact my email address is a government email address subject to discovery in open court so we have some of the strictest email policies and filtration I can imagine. I get text, pics, video etc and while I have had some emails sent to the spam folder I do not recall ever not getting them at all.

I am personally of the mindset this is an ISP issue and not an end user issue (either on the customer side or on Bill and Corey's part)

In my mind there is no plausible explanation for either a customer or Bill/Corey lying or misleading about email issues. I think the issues are real and again think it is an ISP issue.

Good point, Carforddude! I don't think though that we're saying anything different. I agree it IS probably the ISP that is largely responsible for most of this. Case in point: I used to teach at the University and my email account was much like yours - mail from everywhere. I got ALL the Viagra, "Suzie wants to talk to you", "I need to transfer $8,000,000 to your account", and on and on ad nauseum emails. And yes, we had filters too.

Now, with MSN as my ISP, I get absolutely NONE of that - period! Not even into my "junk mail" folder! The only thing I see in the junk folder are "legitimate" ad type stuff and some newsletters, also from legitimate places. Once in a while I classify something as "not junk".

Sometimes I get a bounce back when I send something that can't be delivered, sometimes, I don't and the email disappears into cyberspace. I used to get "blanket" emails from an acquaintance, but I no longer get them (he sent these to about 10-15 recipients at a time). I don't think he's stopped sending them, either.

So, I suspect the ISP is applying "looks like spam" rules to save on bandwidth.

- Jack

[Sburn]

My thoughts...

Every ISP or email server administrator with a direct Internet connection is doing some flavor of filtering or spam defense. It's just not possible to maintain a mail server any more without some protective measures. The "80-90 percent is spam" statement very correct, so without something being done, bandwidth, disk space, and CPU cycles would be all consumed on spam.

The variable you guys are speaking about above, "I get tons of spam and sometimes it's flagged" vs. "I don't ever get much spam" are simply a result of how the email server admin chooses to handle spam. Admins could just attempt to flag spam and deliver everything, but when users end up clicking delete on 90% of what's in their inbox, or their mailbox fills up with such messages and stops taking email while the owner is on vacation, then it's fair to ask why all concerned are spending bandwidth, disk space, and CPU cycles processing soon-to-be deleted garbage.

So the next step is deciding just to delete "spam" and don't waste resources on trying to store, process, and deliver it. Weak point there is determining to a reasonable certainty what exactly is spam. "V1aGr4", Nigerian Millionaires with business proposals, and the like are real easy to cull out. Problem emails are the ones from your old Aunt Bea back east who just got that snazzy new computer and is anixous to send that really funny joke with the kitty picture to all 20 of the other ladies in the bridge club at once. An email with, "look at my funny kitty" and a picture look an awful lot like spam if you don't know who Aunt Bea is. If your supplier emails you with "here is my proposal" and a Word document, to the spam filter, that looks pretty close to the "proposal" from His Highness Prince Such-and-Such who is most urgently awaiting your banking formation so he can deposit he late Brother's vast million into.

So the price of not being drowned in spam is that the occasional good email get misclassified and dumped. Lots of work has been done (google "Spamassassin") to try to improve the situation, but filtering is still not perfect yet. Maybe to within a percentage point or two. And it always just seems like Murphy's Law that the email you're really waiting from your Aunt Bea or new tunes at PHP falls into that percentage.