Re: spam

**"* P* L* <t*@spamfodder.com>**

> This is almost funny. Well, Andrew will think it's funny. *Your* email was
> in the spam folder. I only learned of its existence because Andrew's
> response was in my Inbox, so I went looking for what he was responding to.
> Both messages were labeled GWL in the subject line. I don't have any spam
> filters set up myself on this email account. What goes into the Spam folder
> is decided by Google. The fact that some of the GWL messages wind up in
> spam, and others do not, suggests to me that some other criteria is being
> used.

There's all kinds of different criteria, and as you pointed out, each
message is treated differently.  

In Andrew's case, his messages are given a higher chance of being spam
because the From: header in his emails only has an email address with 
no name, i.e.

   From: Hamptongar@aol.com

Sally Williams had the same problem, but she also scored even higher
because one of the headers that her mail software added wasn't 
standards compliant and couldn't be parsed:

   Received: from 204.179.122.250 by MBLK-M14.sysops.aol.com (64.12.136.47) 
      with HTTP (WebMailUI); Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:09:42 -0500

Margaret Lauterbach has a problem where her machine claims to be 
margaret.earthlink.net when sending messages, but since that's not 
a valid machine name on the Internet, it raises a flag too:

   Received: from [71.32.183.48] (helo=Margaret.earthlink.net)
        by elasmtp-scoter.atl.sa.earthlink.net with asmtp (Exim 4.34)
        id 1HHMFN-0004Cp-HG
        for gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org; Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:40:41 -0500

Gene Bush had an email on Feb 8 that raised a red flag because it was
received 3-6 hours after the date on which it was sent, which is sometimes
a technique used by spammers (it looks like he just composed a message at 
6am, but didn't upload it to his ISP until 9am).

And the list goes on and on...  :)

So each message is treated uniquely and differently, and some are flagged
as possible spam for valid reasons while others seem more whimsical 
(like Gene's timing issue).

The answer, if your email provider supports it, is to whitelist the GWL
mailing list.  Tell your system to allow anything from 

   gardenwriters-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org

regardless of its spam status and you should be good to go!

Chris

http://www.bonvivantnursery.com/                     Bon Vivant Nursery
http://www.hort.net/gallery/      4048 online plant photos and growing!
http://www.hort.net/gallery/date/2007-02-05/       The latest additions
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