>Please excuse me - I'm about to rant, but it's nothing personal......
I wish everyone gave such a disclaimer! :)
> But if they are the bully, I feel like "Precedence: bulk" is the
> little paper sign somebody taped to my back that says, "Please kick
> me!"
Yes, it is. But that's what makes them the bully. If you have a "Please kick me!"
sign on your back, the nice guys aren't going to beat you up. It only makes you an
easy target for the bully.
> If the original intent of "Precedence: bulk" was ONLY to flag list
> mail as less important, then as far as I'm concerned, somebody blew
> it.
They did. At the time it may have been a great idea, but we're seeing now that AOL is
going to take advantage of the situation and use it as an excuse for dropping mail.
It's kind of like open relays -- they used to be the norm, and were a good thing at
the time, but now they are abused too often to be worthwhile.
> I guess if I were only interested in finding mail to delay or dump, I
> would be very appreciative of the original intent of the Precedence:
> header.
"delay" and "dump" are two very different things. The RFCs make it clear that you
aren't allowed to just dump E-mail (although it is done fairly often, sometimes with
good reason).
The post office sees "bulk mail" on a piece of mail and they may set it aside until
the holiday season is over, or the new guy comes in on Monday, or whatever. But they
don't throw it out.
> But I'm hurting - really hurting - because of this situation.
What I would do is send an individual E-mail (not to the list, of course) to all of
the AOL people on the mailing list. Let them know that they are now blocking many
mailing list messages, and that they should complain to AOL if it happens to them.
> I can't believe that very many other mailing list owners appreciate
> IMail serving up a big fat invitation for an outfit like AOL to dump
> list mail.
Nobody likes what AOL is doing, unless AOL is right and their users like it. But if
their users *do* mind not getting all of their mail from mailing lists, they need to
complain to AOL.
> And whether or not it turns out that the Precedence: header is a
> contributing factor, it really ought to go, because list mail is NOT
> junk mail.
It's not junk mail, but it *is* bulk mail. The idea is that if this E-mail is going
to 10,000 people, and there are 10,000 personal E-mails in the queue as well, more
benefit is going to arrive from the 10,000 personal E-mails being delivered first.
That may not be the case, but typically is. I know I would rather we got a tech
support or sales E-mail through before one from the IMail mailing list. <G>
> Don't snicker, but if anything, list mail should be higher priority
> than "regular" mail, because it's important to so many more people.
That's why I like the idea of having the choice between "bulk" and "list". Part of
the problem is that most mailing lists use "list". If IMail did that, it's quite
possible that AOL would treat us better. Kind of like having a "Don't kick me" sign
on your back: It will still draw the attention of the bully, but there's a slightly
lesser chance that he will beat you up.
> But if 20% of the people on the mailing list don't get their mail, it
> means hundreds - sometimes thousands of people get 20% less of
> whatever they joined that list for.
... and that's why they need to complain to AOL. IMail isn't doing anything wrong
(although it is doing something different, using 'bulk' instead of 'list'). AOL is
definitely, positively doing something wrong (dumping mailing list messages).
--
-Scott
Declude: Anti-virus and Anti-spam solutions for IMail. http://www.declude.com
--
Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html
to be removed from this list.
An Archive of this list is available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/
