[time-nuts] AOL Email Issues

[Attila Kinali]

On Tue, 4 Nov 2014 12:12:34 -0500
"John C. Roos via time-nuts" <time-nuts at febo.com> wrote:

> Why must this be so hard? Would there be some huge cost
> involved in getting a more forgiving server setup that does not
> throw out all but the most primitive text. The FMT-nuts is a good
> example of something that works well and accepts photos and graphics.

Because it's not that easy. I have been managing smaller and larger
mailinglists with a similar setup as this one here for over a decade.
I had quite a bit of trouble myself with different email providers.
Most of these issues are actually not because the mailinglist setup
is broken, but because the receipients email provider does something
weird, non-standard or even violating standards in order to "protect"
themselves against spam. The whole yahoo thing is a good example of that.
AOL is also one of those known to break stuff from time to time.
Often, it's just a small thing that makes them to throw up on you,
like having a dash ("-") in your hostname (which is completly valid, btw).

Unfortunately, these big email providers do not care about mailinglists.
The reaction, when you report problems with them, varies from just ignoring
you (AoL, hotmail), to outright tell you that you are an idiot for even
considering to talk to them (yahoo). So you cannot resolve those issues
and are faced with a rat race to "fix" them (which sometimes
is impossible) or just tell your users to use a different email provider.

Yes, the one who suffers most from this are the users of the mailinglist.
And i can asure you, that none of the mailinglists admin wants to upset
any of their users, but please keep in mind that these mailinglists are
run in the free time of those admins, as a service to other people who
share the same hobby and interests.

The best you can do, is to report such issues to the mailinglist admin,
whos email address you can usually find in the header of the mail.


			Attila Kinali

-- 
I pity people who can't find laughter or at least some bit of amusement in
the little doings of the day. I believe I could find something ridiculous
even in the saddest moment, if necessary. It has nothing to do with being
superficial. It's a matter of joy in life.
			-- Sophie Scholl