At 12:35 09/19/2003 Friday, Dave Simon wrote:
 >
 >Sure, one can try to get AOL to change.  However, we chose to deal with the
 >problem differently when it became apparent that many of our AOL
 >subscribers were not getting our messages.  We contacted LSoft and they
 >stated that they knew of the problems.  The suggested that we add a
 >"Mail-Via= Direct" to our lists (all 800!) to bypass use of the LISTSERV
 >backbone (an obsolete architecture?) which would reduce the likelihood of
 >AOL considering our messages spam.  LSoft also suggested setting up a
 >specific SMTP route in LSMTP for AOL with relatively low number of
 >recipients and connections.  These actions solved our problems.  However,
 >we were disappointed that LSoft did not proactively mention the problem and
 >its solution to its customers.

I don't consider the LISTSERV Distribute Backbone an obsolete
architecture (and it was unclear to me what that had to do with this
particular problem), nor do I consider Mal-Via= Direct as a solution, but
a by-pass of a design flaw in AOL blocking strategies.

Pete