Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
> On 30 Jan 2024, at 01:20, Randolf Richardson, Postmaster via mailop > wrote: > >>> On 28 Jan 2024, at 20:23, Thomas Walter via mailop >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 28.01.24 20:02, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: There are "edge cases" when the mail couldn't be reliably classified as spam or non-spam. Even with best tuned spam filtering systems false positives will happen. >>> >>> So why not just deliver these to the Inbox then - and add a tag/label >>> instead if you have to? >> >> A very experienced spam filter person, who worked at a not-for-profit spam >> filtering company and two of the major mailbox providers once told me that >> the biggest challenge with their job was that there were messages that some >> recipients were SURE were spam and messages that some recipients absolutely >> wanted. Those were the hardest messages to decide what to do with. They >> couldn´t block them because some recipients would be mad and they couldn´t >> deliver them because other recipients would be mad. > > It's a catch-22 that becomes a more common challenge as the number > of users increases. Ultimately, the spam problem has many human > factors to it, so a purely-technical solution will be imperfect. Exactly. >>> In 95% of the cases, I can just identify the bad emails by subject. A quick >>> press on DEL and it's gone. >>> >>> I don't see any advantage of a Spam folder if I have to regularly check it >>> anyway. In fact it can even be more difficult to identify a false positive >>> between the Junk that collected in there. >> >> Some mail clients allow you to turn off the spam folder option and get every >> mail, spam or not, in your inbox. That may be a solution for you. I know >> mail.app will also tag it in a different color, so you can visually see what >> mail.app thinks is spam in you rinbox. > > SpamAssassin tagging can also continue as-is because it's just in an > SMTP header. Ditto for other solutions that add SMTP headers. And you can configure Apple mail to respect those headers. We run a very unique and special setup for Reasons (tm) that doesn’t involve any SMTP based filtering. > >>> Plus there are still customers that use POP3 for different reasons >>> (connectors that collect mails for internal Exchange systems for example). >>> Those never get to see the content of a spam folder. >> >> Google heavily discourages POP, to the extent it throws up security warnings >> if you try and enable it. They´re pretty clear they don´t want their >> customers using it, so why would they go out of their way to suppor tht >> usage? > [sNip] > > Interestingly, Google's GMail allows access to external eMail > accounts via POP3. There's no IMAP4 support there. It's as if they > want only the rest of the world to keep supporting POP3. Anything to keep the user in an environment google controls. laura -- The Delivery Expert Laura Atkins Word to the Wise la...@wordtothewise.com Delivery hints and commentary: http://wordtothewise.com/blog ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
> > On 28 Jan 2024, at 20:23, Thomas Walter via mailop > > wrote: > > > > > > > > On 28.01.24 20:02, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: > >> There are "edge cases" when the mail couldn't be reliably classified as > >> spam > >> or non-spam. Even with best tuned spam filtering systems false positives > >> will happen. > > > > So why not just deliver these to the Inbox then - and add a tag/label > > instead if you have to? > > A very experienced spam filter person, who worked at a not-for-profit spam > filtering company and two of the major mailbox providers once told me that > the biggest challenge with their job was that there were messages that some > recipients were SURE were spam and messages that some recipients absolutely > wanted. Those were the hardest messages to decide what to do with. They > couldn´t block them because some recipients would be mad and they couldn´t > deliver them because other recipients would be mad. It's a catch-22 that becomes a more common challenge as the number of users increases. Ultimately, the spam problem has many human factors to it, so a purely-technical solution will be imperfect. > > In 95% of the cases, I can just identify the bad emails by subject. A quick > > press on DEL and it's gone. > > > > I don't see any advantage of a Spam folder if I have to regularly check it > > anyway. In fact it can even be more difficult to identify a false positive > > between the Junk that collected in there. > > Some mail clients allow you to turn off the spam folder option and get every > mail, spam or not, in your inbox. That may be a solution for you. I know > mail.app will also tag it in a different color, so you can visually see what > mail.app thinks is spam in you rinbox. SpamAssassin tagging can also continue as-is because it's just in an SMTP header. Ditto for other solutions that add SMTP headers. > > Plus there are still customers that use POP3 for different reasons > > (connectors that collect mails for internal Exchange systems for example). > > Those never get to see the content of a spam folder. > > Google heavily discourages POP, to the extent it throws up security warnings > if you try and enable it. They´re pretty clear they don´t want their > customers using it, so why would they go out of their way to suppor tht usage? [sNip] Interestingly, Google's GMail allows access to external eMail accounts via POP3. There's no IMAP4 support there. It's as if they want only the rest of the world to keep supporting POP3. -- Postmaster - postmas...@inter-corporate.com Randolf Richardson, CNA - rand...@inter-corporate.com Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada https://www.inter-corporate.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
Dnia 28.01.2024 o godz. 22:04:26 Jay Hennigan via mailop pisze: > Conversely, when the receiver purges everything else in the spam > folder without opening it, this gives feedback that the decision to > route it to spam was correct. And this is often the problem, because - as I mentioned - users tend to think that spam folder is something they don't need to look at, because "by definition" everything in it is spam. Thus, if a (non-spam) sender once lands in spam folder and is never "pulled out" from there, a false signal is given to classify further messages from that sender as spam, and thus a sender falls into a positive feedback loop, continually increasing their rating as spam, which is almost impossible to get out of. -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
Dnia 28.01.2024 o godz. 23:44:29 Scott Mutter via mailop pisze: > What if the receiving mail server tagged the message in some way in their > final acknowledgement of the message. For Google. instead of: > > 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 > h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449 - gsmtp > > If the message is redirected to the user's spambox, the message could be: > > 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 > h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449-spam - gsmtp > > Or provide some number attached to the ID that identifies how much > spamminess the receiving mail server thinks the message is. Or at least include some information in the DMARC report they send, how many messages have been classified as ham or spam... -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
> On 28 Jan 2024, at 20:23, Thomas Walter via mailop wrote: > > > > On 28.01.24 20:02, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: >> There are "edge cases" when the mail couldn't be reliably classified as spam >> or non-spam. Even with best tuned spam filtering systems false positives >> will happen. > > So why not just deliver these to the Inbox then - and add a tag/label instead > if you have to? A very experienced spam filter person, who worked at a not-for-profit spam filtering company and two of the major mailbox providers once told me that the biggest challenge with their job was that there were messages that some recipients were SURE were spam and messages that some recipients absolutely wanted. Those were the hardest messages to decide what to do with. They couldn’t block them because some recipients would be mad and they couldn’t deliver them because other recipients would be mad. > In 95% of the cases, I can just identify the bad emails by subject. A quick > press on DEL and it's gone. > > I don't see any advantage of a Spam folder if I have to regularly check it > anyway. In fact it can even be more difficult to identify a false positive > between the Junk that collected in there. Some mail clients allow you to turn off the spam folder option and get every mail, spam or not, in your inbox. That may be a solution for you. I know mail.app will also tag it in a different color, so you can visually see what mail.app thinks is spam in you rinbox. > Plus there are still customers that use POP3 for different reasons > (connectors that collect mails for internal Exchange systems for example). > Those never get to see the content of a spam folder. Google heavily discourages POP, to the extent it throws up security warnings if you try and enable it. They’re pretty clear they don’t want their customers using it, so why would they go out of their way to suppor tht usage? > >> Just having a binary distinction - reject or deliver to inbox - would be a >> much bigger obstacle to communication than delivering to spam folder, >> because it's still easier to reach the recipient in some different way and >> tell them to check the spam folder, than to make the recipient's provider >> fine-tune their email filtering to exempt you from rejection. > > It should be just as easy to contact the recipient and tell him his provider > is blocking the email - and for the recipient itself to lift the block in > some way instead of having to convince the provider. I totally agree with you. It is a regular part of my followup process for some business messages when I’m unsure if my response was delivered. A lot of my customers are senders with poor enough domain reputation that if I leave their domain name in my replies their provider puts it in the spam folder. I do go find another way to contact them, be that through their website or LinkedIn or another non-email channel. >> Of course, the users should be aware that they *should* check the spam >> folder, which means, the provider should inform them about this with a very >> clear and prominently visible message. Sadly, most providers don't do it, >> therefore the users are convinced that they don't need to check the spam >> folder at all, since it's clearly labelled "spam" or "junk", so "by >> definition" it cannot contain anything useful to them. > > We've done this in the past and sent out daily mails with a list of subjects > that got sorted as Spam. After a week or so nobody read that email anymore. > > And after we had some issues with important documents and deadlines that got > missed, because nobody checked their Spam folder, we just leave them in the > Inbox. > > Yes, I do see my share of Spam this way, but I also do see the Spam if I have > to check the Spam folder regularly… Different audiences have different needs. Not all providers are going to meet the needs of all senders and all recipients. IDIC. laura -- The Delivery Expert Laura Atkins Word to the Wise la...@wordtothewise.com Delivery hints and commentary: http://wordtothewise.com/blog ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
On 1/28/24 21:44, Scott Mutter via mailop wrote: What if the receiving mail server tagged the message in some way in their final acknowledgement of the message. For Google. instead of: 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449 - gsmtp If the message is redirected to the user's spambox, the message could be: 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449-spam - gsmtp Or provide some number attached to the ID that identifies how much spamminess the receiving mail server thinks the message is. This would at least give a tool for the sending server to know if the messages being sent out of their server are being flagged as spam. It would also give feedback to spammers allowing them to fine-tune their messages to avoid getting flagged. Bulk senders tend to think of spam as "not what we do", but those on the receiving end often have much different opinions. I'm looking at you, Sendgrid. I get that it's a thin line between offering this information and that information being abused by spammers to circumvent the receiving server's anti-spam measures. But there's also no judicial system or oversight in making these determinations. The receiving server gets to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to making these determinations. And because these email service providers are "too-big-to-fail" it's never their fault for being overzealous with their blocking or weighing scale. They can block whoever they want, whenever they want, with no explanation at all. Precisely. Their network, their rules. IMHO the spam folder is a pretty good compromise compared to outright rejection. As a receiver, having a spam folder allows me to occasionally check it for missed non-spam mail. When the receiver flags such as non-spam that gives feedback that can be used to tune the algorithm to prevent future similar non-spam from winding up in the spam folder. Conversely, when the receiver purges everything else in the spam folder without opening it, this gives feedback that the decision to route it to spam was correct. None of this feedback gets back to the spammer-sender. -- Jay Hennigan - j...@west.net Network Engineering - CCIE #7880 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
What if the receiving mail server tagged the message in some way in their final acknowledgement of the message. For Google. instead of: 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449 - gsmtp If the message is redirected to the user's spambox, the message could be: 250 2.0.0 OK 1706409809 h4-20020ac8584400b10427e71c979dsi9837397zyh.449-spam - gsmtp Or provide some number attached to the ID that identifies how much spamminess the receiving mail server thinks the message is. This would at least give a tool for the sending server to know if the messages being sent out of their server are being flagged as spam. I get that it's a thin line between offering this information and that information being abused by spammers to circumvent the receiving server's anti-spam measures. But there's also no judicial system or oversight in making these determinations. The receiving server gets to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to making these determinations. And because these email service providers are "too-big-to-fail" it's never their fault for being overzealous with their blocking or weighing scale. They can block whoever they want, whenever they want, with no explanation at all. ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
On 28.01.24 20:02, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: There are "edge cases" when the mail couldn't be reliably classified as spam or non-spam. Even with best tuned spam filtering systems false positives will happen. So why not just deliver these to the Inbox then - and add a tag/label instead if you have to? In 95% of the cases, I can just identify the bad emails by subject. A quick press on DEL and it's gone. I don't see any advantage of a Spam folder if I have to regularly check it anyway. In fact it can even be more difficult to identify a false positive between the Junk that collected in there. Plus there are still customers that use POP3 for different reasons (connectors that collect mails for internal Exchange systems for example). Those never get to see the content of a spam folder. Just having a binary distinction - reject or deliver to inbox - would be a much bigger obstacle to communication than delivering to spam folder, because it's still easier to reach the recipient in some different way and tell them to check the spam folder, than to make the recipient's provider fine-tune their email filtering to exempt you from rejection. It should be just as easy to contact the recipient and tell him his provider is blocking the email - and for the recipient itself to lift the block in some way instead of having to convince the provider. Of course, the users should be aware that they *should* check the spam folder, which means, the provider should inform them about this with a very clear and prominently visible message. Sadly, most providers don't do it, therefore the users are convinced that they don't need to check the spam folder at all, since it's clearly labelled "spam" or "junk", so "by definition" it cannot contain anything useful to them. We've done this in the past and sent out daily mails with a list of subjects that got sorted as Spam. After a week or so nobody read that email anymore. And after we had some issues with important documents and deadlines that got missed, because nobody checked their Spam folder, we just leave them in the Inbox. Yes, I do see my share of Spam this way, but I also do see the Spam if I have to check the Spam folder regularly… Regards, Thomas Walter -- Thomas Walter Datenverarbeitungszentrale FH Münster - University of Applied Sciences - Corrensstr. 25, Raum B 112 48149 Münster Tel: +49 251 83 64 908 Fax: +49 251 83 64 910 www.fh-muenster.de/dvz/ smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
Dnia 27.01.2024 o godz. 13:21:46 Thomas Walter via mailop pisze: > > To me it just doesn't make a lot of sense to basically have two > inboxes to check - the regular one and the spamfolder. > > Also having to tell people to check their spamfolders every time > they are missing an email is annoying too. > > I'd rather know that my email was considered spam than trying to > figure out why someone did not reply after a few days. At least that > would give me a chance to use a different contact method or try to > resolve the issue in the first place. > > Yes, I know, spamfolders are used for training, but perhaps there > should be other ways? There are "edge cases" when the mail couldn't be reliably classified as spam or non-spam. Even with best tuned spam filtering systems false positives will happen. If the mail provider isn't *extremely* supportive to their users with regard to fine-tuning the spam filtering rules, spam folder is a good solution for these edge cases. Rejecting should be reserved only for "obvious" spam, for example if your spam filtering system (whatever it is) gives a message a score above 10, it is rejected, if below 5 - it goes to the inbox, but between 5 and 10 it goes to the spam folder. Just having a binary distinction - reject or deliver to inbox - would be a much bigger obstacle to communication than delivering to spam folder, because it's still easier to reach the recipient in some different way and tell them to check the spam folder, than to make the recipient's provider fine-tune their email filtering to exempt you from rejection. I had only once encountered an email provider where process of lifting the block was very easy and almost effortless - it was mail.ru. I wrote a message to one user there and it was rejected, with a link to a page that contained a very simple form I needed to fill in to have the block lifted. I did and in a couple of hours I got an email saying that I was unblocked. If everyone behaved like that, I would be very much supporting your stance - either deliver to inbox, or reject. But the fact is that with most recipients, if your message is rejected, you can't pretty much do anything about it - at least it isn't quick and easy. So the spam folder is still a better solution. Of course, the users should be aware that they *should* check the spam folder, which means, the provider should inform them about this with a very clear and prominently visible message. Sadly, most providers don't do it, therefore the users are convinced that they don't need to check the spam folder at all, since it's clearly labelled "spam" or "junk", so "by definition" it cannot contain anything useful to them. This is a main problem in my opinion. The providers should clearly inform users, that there MAY be non-spam messages in the spam folder, and if they don't want to lose mail, they SHOULD check that folder. -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Spamfolder mini rant (Was: Contact Google Postmaster)
Hello, On 27.01.24 12:47, Laura Atkins via mailop wrote: There is remediation available. What there isn’t is some imprimatur that ensures that every email is delivered to the inbox every time unless the sender considers it spam and agrees with the decision. That’s just not how it works. Well, there could be if providers would stop delivering what they think is spam into spamfolders and reject it instead. To me it just doesn't make a lot of sense to basically have two inboxes to check - the regular one and the spamfolder. Also having to tell people to check their spamfolders every time they are missing an email is annoying too. I'd rather know that my email was considered spam than trying to figure out why someone did not reply after a few days. At least that would give me a chance to use a different contact method or try to resolve the issue in the first place. Yes, I know, spamfolders are used for training, but perhaps there should be other ways? Regards, Thomas Walter -- Thomas Walter Datenverarbeitungszentrale FH Münster - University of Applied Sciences - Corrensstr. 25, Raum B 112 48149 Münster Tel: +49 251 83 64 908 Fax: +49 251 83 64 910 www.fh-muenster.de/dvz/ smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
