Eric Thomas wrote the following on 6/19/2007 7:39 AM: <snip> >> Following AOL's own instructions to filter mail from unwanted >> senders to the spam folder will cause those messages to be reported >> as spam. > > This is even more absurd. If there is one specific poster on the list > whose messages you do not care to read, for instance because he writes > in a language you do not speak, the entire list is reported as spam. I never said I agreed with AOL's methods of implementation. :-) Just pointing out that it isn't always the subscriber doing something stupid on their own. My guess, to give a very generous benefit of the doubt, is that AOL started that recommendation before they started using the spam folders to justify blacklisting senders. <snip> > 4. I get a barrage of spam reports that I cannot even act on manually > because they lack the necessary information. But unless I magically > act on them anyway, I will be blacklisted and go back to point 2. One trick we found was to turn on daily passive probing. If the subscriber was deleting all mail, or the first post from the list, we would have an address to respond to. Jasper wrote a nifty little program that identified emails with the passive probe so we didn't have to spend hours sifting through them. Actually, passive probing seems to work the number-of-days-specified + 1, so a daily probe actually goes out every other day. Still, that was enough to track down a significant number of subscribers who were reporting list mail as spam, and discover that it wasn't always deliberate. -- Karen Reznek head listowner -- Asperger Director -- ICORS