(Why do my messages always take two days to get through to the list?)
On 3/1/99 7:56 AM, Rich Kulawiec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote...
>On Sat, Feb 27, 1999 at 01:30:47PM -0600, Adam Bailey wrote:
>>On 2/24/99 3:29 PM, Rich Kulawiec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote...
>>
>>>On Tue, Feb 23, 1999 at 09:48:24PM -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>>> Is anyone else having problems with AOL subscribers?
>>>
>>>It's AOL's clueless (is this any surprise?) and inappropriate anti-spam
>>>tactics, which mostly seem to consist of blocking legitimate traffic
>>
>>I'll back you up if you call their methods overzealous, but clueless and
>>inappropriate?
>
>Yes. On a recent Friday morning, legitimate mailing list traffic
>directed to a number of AOL subscribers was rejected (and, I might
>add, with an incorrect and leading diagnostic message). AOL later
>quietly acknowledged (informally) that this was an "oops' on the part
>of their anti-spam effort.
Yes, they've made ooopses from time to time. Everyone makes mistakes.
That's not a sign of a system-wide policy that's out to get you, and
they're fixed when found.
>> Plenty of sites have no trouble. The ones that do, are the
>> ones playing fast and loose with DNS, have a bad history for allowing
>> relays, or are otherwise abusing SMTP delivery.
>
>None of which applies to the site(s) in question. Let me repeat that
>so that you clearly understand: the site(s) in question are not playing
>fast and loose with DNS, they have NEVER had relaying enabled, much
>less abused, and they have NEVER abused SMTP delivery. (I know this
>because I have been personally responsible for the operation of these
>site(s) from their first day of existence.)
As Chuq and others have pointed out, plenty of sites are able to get mail
through to AOL all the time. It's a select few that have problems.
When I speak of abusing SMTP delivery, I'm referring to mailing list
systems which generate too many RCPT TOs for AOL's taste, making it look
like a UBE attack. I was purposely vague, because I'm not up on all the
technical terms in this regard.
>No, the problem was AOL's clueless and inappropriate methods. I don't
>see why anyone would find this surprising, given their long history
>of incompetence.
It's your bias that has a long history. People who have problems are the
exception, not the rule. Millions of AOL members get millions of list
messages without trouble. Unless you can prove that AOL is somehow out to
get you, I suggest you redirect your energy to finding the problem and
solving it, rather than ranting about how AOL is able to manage a system
supporting more users than any other, and can do so with any level of
incompetence.
There's plenty of clueless management at AOL, but the technical people
know their stuff up and down. Attempts to impugn their technical ability
is an insult to the massive amount of work they have to do to force a
legacy system to support the largest single membership on Earth.
--
Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | "Logic is the art of going wrong with
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | confidence." - George Bernard Shaw
Finger for PGP | http://www.lull.org/adam/
