[EBB Sightings] Administrator Post: Bulk Mail, Spam, and ISPs

March 8, 2005

In February, there was some discussion on the Sightings list about 
lost mail.  The topic was specifically about Yahoo routing list mail 
into a bulk mail folder, but the problem is NOT only germane to Yahoo 
mail accounts.

All of the major ISPs are competing to have the best SPAM filtering 
capabilities, that is, the service most able to get rid of annoying 
SPAM.   These SPAM filtering capabilities are usually applauded by 
their customers, but they are causing all sorts of problems for lists 
like this one.

We have had the most problems so far with AOL and Yahoo.  Both of 
these internet providers depend on their customers collectively to 
define SPAM for them.   What that means is that IF just 2 or 3 Yahoo 
customers mistakenly call our list messages SPAM, by simply clicking 
the SPAM button, our list messages can become SPAM for every Yahoo 
subscriber.

And with 540 total Sightings subscribers, including 65 AOL, 40 
Comcast, 48 Earthlink, and 50 Yahoo, you are going to be somewhat 
dependent on others for the success of our list mail.    With over 
100 different Sightings posts each month, the math is that over 5,000 
separate Sightings messages get sent to individual Yahoo subscribers 
by our list each month.  A couple of errant clicks are easy to see 
with these volumes.

Some of the internet providers recognize the problem, and offer 
"white-lists" for good lists like Sightings, as opposed to the bad 
lists that commercial Spammers use.  We have "white-list" status with 
both Yahoo and AOL, however the experiences that other lists have 
with it are muddy.

Getting back to Yahoo specifically, these are the recommended steps 
if you still see list mail appear in your bulk folder:

1) Enter the following email addresses as contacts in your address book !!
  sightings at diabloaudubon.com
sightings-admin at diabloaudubon.com

2) Specifically mark any messages in the bulk folder that shouldn't 
be in the bulk folder as "Not Spam."  The Yahoo helper people caution 
that you may have to do this with several Sightings messages before 
your spam filters will retrain themselves.

3) Consider resetting your personal SPAM filters as explained here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/plus/spamguardplus/spamguardplus-13.html

4) If none of this works, you can filter list messages into a new 
folder by following these instructions:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/manage/manage-06.html


If you want to access this information in the future, it is available 
from the Sightings subscription homepage, located here:
http://www.diabloaudubon.com/mailman/listinfo/sightings



Patrick King
Deputy Sightings Administrator
Martinez / Berkeley