Hi Ken Fully understand the pressures you guys are under; just say the word when everything is back in order...and I won't say a word. At least we now know what's happening!!!
On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 8:21 PM, Ken McGinnis <[email protected]> wrote: > Our old mail server just died. We tried to get it fixed/restored. After > some attempt at that we ended up moving to a new server and list server. > We are using MailMan for our new list server. The SmarterMail server we > were using for lists was about 4 years old. A lot has changed with mailing > list servers during those years. We should have taken the time to update > it sooner but we thought it was working just fine. > > When the old mail server died it was without warning. We had to scramble > to fix it and after failed attempts we started researching and setting up a > new mailing list sever. There was no way to warn everyone that the list > was going to be moved to a new sever. > > Here is a more technical explanation for those who care to know more > details. > =================================== > Several mail providers have changed how they accept email. This caused a > lot of problems a couple years ago especially for mailing list servers and > the deliver-ability of email from a mailing list. We had no idea so many > people who had subscribed were not getting any emails form the old server. > We had some people complain the during last couple years and our support > team has worked hard to help get the mail working but many people simply > couldn't get email from our lists. We now believe that number is about 1/3 > of all subscribers never saw any email even though they had subscribed to > the this mailing list. We had no idea that many had problems. > > The new DMARC rules and the digital signature PKI encryption have pretty > much broken all mail servers. Mail Servers change email messages by > adding headers or maybe footers to a message. They may change the > subject line to add something like [LegacyUG]. Also the headers in the > message that contain the deliverable address gets modified by list > servers. All of this fiddling with an email is similar to what s p a m m > e r s use. So, about 30% of all email providers won't allow emails form > mailing lists through. The newer version of MailMan software that we > moved to works a lot better but isn't perfect. It handles things better > by trying to figure out the rules an email provider requires and MailMan > has options to help improve the deliver-ability by follow those rules. > > So, the problem isn't that we just took the liberty of adding a bunch of > people to a mailing list but rather over the last 3 or so years people > have subscribed and but never got a confirmation and never received any > email from the list. The list still had them as subscribers. I had backups > of all the lists that were only about 2 days before the server crashed. > These exact lists were imported to the new mailing list sever. Oh, what a > relief or so we thought. Then the problems started. We figure that about > 1/3 of everyone we just put on the new sever started getting emails for the > first time ever from the list. Whoa, what's all this email all of a > sudden. Then, as all of you have experienced the last couple days the > "panic/frustration" mail started. It was one of our users Wendy Howard who > is a moderator for several mailing lists over at RootsWeb (they use the > same MailMan software we do) sent me an email and after talking with her > discovered that we can turn on Emergency Moderation for a while which we > did yesterday. The Emergency Moderation will help so we can all get back > to actual Legacy questions and help. All of the non-Legacy related emails > can be worked on off-list by the moderators who can help people get > unsubscribed. > > It will probably take a while for the thousands who are now getting any emails > for the first time ever to be assisted in getting unsubscribed. It's too > bad those people never got to experience what this list is really all > about. Users Helping Users. All of you are Awesome and there are so many > good people here who give of their time to help others. Thanks to all of > you. > > We are working as hard as we can to keep everyone happy. Thank you for > your understanding and we hope this never happens again. > > Thanks, > Ken McGinnis > http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com <http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/> >
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