Hi! It's your friendly local (...ok, Philadelphia-based) lace-making systems administrator. I think I can tell you what's going wrong.
Did the disappearing emails problem begin about a year ago? That's when first Yahoo, then AOL, made changes which rendered their users unable to reach everyone on mailing lists. Basically, users of mailing lists are such a tiny and shrinking part of the internet that in implementing new anti-spam measures, Yahoo and AOL did not even take mailing lists into consideration (ok, Yahoo may also have had the ulterior motive of wanting people to only use Yahoo groups). The resulting error only affects non-digest readers of mailing lists. It does not affect direct emails from AOL and Yahoo senders *or* digests containing AOL and Yahoo senders - it only affects messages delivered through a mailing list that originated from AOL, Yahoo, or anyone else who has implemented the same DMARC policy. In April 2014, Yahoo, followed by AOL, set a "DMARC policy" to tell the other machines on the internet "only accept @yahoo.com/@aol.com emails *directly from* yahoo.com/aol.com servers! Accept no substitutes!" Their intent was to prevent spoofed spam emails that purported to come from them, but were really originating elsewhere. Unfortunately, when you use a mailing list (any mailing list), email *from you* appears to come *via the mailing list's servers*, not via your own provider's servers. So from that point onward, all mail to mailing lists from yahoo.com users and aol.com users was in violation of the new DMARC policy (I could put a footnote here about mailing lists *run* by yahoo/AOL being an exception, but it's not really relevant). The reason why many of us can still see the emails from our yahoo.com and aol.com lacemakers is simply that we are using mail providers who are ignoring DMARC policies. If my email provider paid attention to the policies and did as AOL and Yahoo ask, I wouldn't be seeing Jeri and Devon's emails to the list either. So, it's not as simple as an error at the originating end, in the middle, or at the receiving end. For this error to occur, all three pieces have to participate! The originating end has to have a draconian DMARC policy - the receiving end has to adhere to it - and the middle, the mailing list, just has to act as mailing lists have always acted, passing the mail along through its own servers with the sender's address intact. With those three conditions met, the mail will be rejected (lost entirely, not just sent to spam). Since there are three pieces, there are three solutions. One, send emails from a mail provider without a draconian DMARC policy, and everyone will get your email (barring other issues). Two, read your email from a mail provider that ignores DMARC policies, and you will be able to read everyone's messages... at least until your provider joins the modern era. Or three, adjust the mailing list software so that it no longer passes messages unchanged (this is why the digest option works!), making the DMARC policy irrelevant. In this solution, emails would look to the other mail servers as if they originated from the list, rather than from the person who sent the email, and the DMARC policy would not be triggered. If the list admin wants to pursue option three, I'm happy to offer further assistance. Amanda in Philly, PA, US On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 10:53:25AM -0400, Malvary Cole wrote: > We have known for some time that not everyone receives everything. I don't > see messages from Jeri, Devon, others I can't think of at the moment, and > surprisingly Jacquie Tinch, who as most of you know, is my sister. However, > I do see messages from them if they write to me directly. > > I know I am not unique, as Jane mentioned earlier. So... I have come to the > conclusion that as I can communicate with them individually with no problem, > that it must be something in the way that the Arachne service is provided. I > have talked to my service provider and they cannot identify anything awry. > > Malvary in a very warm and wet Ottawa, Ontario (looks like no bowling today > as storms are forecast for later when a cold front moves through) > > - > To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: > unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to > [email protected]. Photo site: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/ - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
