Randy Cassingham's Blog

Glad to hear things are getting straightened out.

Still feels a little like closing the barn door just a tad too late. Yes, good for you, I'm truly happy for you, but if this happens (happened already most likely) to others, I seriously doubt the results would be the same.

You do have a connection to your readers and others who live and breath the internet, and that's great, but my concern will remain for the lesser known, but still legitimate email/ezine publishers who are probably even now falling silently by the wayside due to these same actions.

Two outcomes desired here:

1. Get True cleared and back into the inboxes of those requesting it. --Done!

2. Get Yahoo! to review how it indiscriminately shuts off legitimate mail and act responsibly as well. Their actions from the start were really no better than the lazy subscribers who just hit that button. Instead of checking, they just let themselves be lead by those same idjits.

Very irresponsible.

Let's see how they approach these matters in the future.

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You are certainly correct -- which is why I stressed so much why small, independent voices, not just True, need support, as well as responsible actions on the part of their readers. -rc

I've been a long time reader but never knew about the page you mentioned having the latest issue. You probably mentioned it but I was happy with email delivery. Now I'm shifting over to using a newsreader for anything with feeds.

Would it be possible to make an RSS feed of the page with the latest issue (like this one has)? In fact, encouraging RSS delivery with more ads on the website may help increase revenue for you. Something to think about.

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There has been an RSS alerter for new issues posted to the "Current Issue" page for several years -- here. Unfortunately, it looks like the explicit link/logo dropped off the site when the redesign was installed. I'll work on putting it back. -rc

One thing that this has taught me is to check my spam folder more often. The first time I did that this week was very 'painful' as there were so many to review. But now, when I do it every day or so, it is just a quick scan.

I found about at least 7 more 'legit' emails in Yahoo's spam folder including one from my bank (a very prominent Internet Bank).

I'm still amazed what gets into the Inbox. Just today I had countless solicitations for xxx sites and others for a 'great business oppotunity' if I work with someone from Africa. I don't know what their algorithm is for determining spam, but these are so obvious it sees like yahoo is being paid to ignore all the signs of what it is.

I'm being much more aggressive with these types of emails and marking them as spam. It probably won't help but it makes me feel better.

I can't say how much of the problem is due to poor user interface design, but the button on the Yahoo mail message display page doesn't say "Report Spam" or "This is Spam" it just says "Spam".

Some years ago, so long that the details escape me, I was a newbie on a freemail site that might or might not have been Yahoo. I received my very first spam message and, of course, immediately deleted it. The site, of course, then displayed the next message in my inbox. At that point I noticed a button marked "Report Spam." "That's for me," I cried, and clicked it. Instead of a form for me to fill out to report that other message as spam, as I had expected, I received a "thank you for your report" screen. "No! Not this message!" I shouted, to no avail. I think I sent a message to someone on the "contact us" page explaining what I had done, but I don't remember anything (positive or negative) coming of it.

My point, and I do have one, is that some of the Spam clicks might possibly have been accidental. Not that it helps any....

My premium True subscription now goes to my Gmail account, which BTW I got through an invite from Randy. Thanks again!

The Yahoo problem is bad. I am a pilot for Angel Flight SC and we can't get our daily emails listing missions available to fly patients because Yahoo has blocked us as spam!!!

In the last month, spam has gotten crazy!

Keep up the good work!

I just deleted some spam this afternoon, and noticed something odd.

I had well over a hundred messages (I don't check my Yahoo email often, and haven't subscribed to anything using that address.) They all wanted to sell me drugs from Canada or get my help liberating money from Nigeria. I clicked "Check all" and then "Spam," thinking that all the messages on the first screen would be deleted and I'd have the next screen of spam to wade through.

And my inbox was empty.

I have no idea what was on that second screen. I'm assuming there should have been more messages--perhaps they all fit on one screen, but it didn't seem like more than 100.

There are probably some folks who decided they didn't want True anymore and just hit "Spam" instead of unsubscribing, but I'll bet that plenty of messages were marked as spam accidentally.

It seems the problem still exists - my mail server dropped the current issue into my deleted items folder as soon as it came through to my computer. I have Windows Live Mail, and have never clicked to identify the newsletters as spam. I'm wondering if some other 'news' websites are falsely reporting other newsletters as spam to try and get them taken down, due to jealousy of their popularity?

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Windows Live Mail, is that the new label for Hotmail?

This only has to do with Yahoo, and by coincidence a little bit of GMail. My advice in general stands: search your spam folder for the Good Stuff they threw away, mark it "not spam" if you find it, and complain that they're not accurate enough with their filtering. And if it doesn't work the way you want it -- if they don't help you get the mail you want, and avoid the mail you don't -- then vote with your feet. GMail seems best, and even my respect for Yahoo is now up quite a bit. -rc

It's now Windows Live Hotmail, ahem. (Thanks M$.) Windows Live Mail replaces (and is "better" than) Outlook Express, so in all likelihood the poster has Windows Live Mail set up to receive their Yahoo! and/or Gmail emails. I believe you can even set it up for (the paid-for) Hotmail.

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Thanks. As you can tell, I haven't been paying attention to what they're doing. I've always been pretty unimpressed with Hotmail.... -rc

Now if I could only figure out a way to get AT&T/Yahoo to stop blocking CareerBuilder.com.

CareerBuilder can't get them to.

Any good "conspiracy theorys" out there?

I thought ALL the messages labeled by Yahoo as Spam went to the spambox. I want to know what ELSE I have been missing.