Missing Premium? Read This Carefully!

Are you a missing a Premium issue? I am happy to replace issues when you don’t get them. (Not free edition issues: you can find the most recent free issue here, and the one before that here.)

First, check your spam folder. Almost all missing issues are due to overzealous spam filtering. This means logging in via webmail to look. Make sure mail from thisistrue.com is “whitelisted” (exempted from filtering). Sometimes you can explicitly set up such a rule, but not always.

If you do find issues in the spam folder, mark every one of them “Not Spam” (or however your provider labels it) to help “train” their filters that this is mail you want!

One trick to try is to add my randy@ “From” address to your address book.

Getting one edition doesn’t mean you’ll get the other. The free and Premium editions come “from” different addresses and different servers; they’re often filtered very differently. Also, some specific word in a story could trigger a filter, while that story doesn’t make it into the free edition at all. So always check the spam folder if you’re missing an issue.

Please use the form below rather than replying to an old issue. That doesn’t get my attention: it might take me weeks to catch up with random replies.

If you don’t get a reply, odds are the same spam filters that caught the issue in the first place caught the reply, too, and filtered it out again. This is almost always true even if you believe your site/provider “doesn’t filter spam”! 99.99% of providers do, and if they insist they don’t then you can bet your paycheck THEIR providers do.

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If It Happens a Lot

If this is happening a lot PLEASE try a different delivery address. The address I’m using is in the footer of every issue: is that the best one for you? If not, change it here.

Frequent missing issues is most often a problem when you use a work address — especially a big corporation that puts resources into spam filtering. Yes, that does help reduce spam, but This is True is often caught up in that because such newsletters typically don’t “look like” business-related email. And frankly, for most companies, it’s not: even if your company allows you to get “fun” email at work, filtering companies often assume newsletters like mine are not business related, and there’s nothing I can do to change that (though you might be able to, through your IT admins).

The solution: get your own, private, email address. Even if your company doesn’t mind you using your company address for personal use, it’s smart to have an address they don’t have the legal right to read! And one you can take with you should you part ways with them. I really like Google’s Gmail, since it’s the best at filtering spam; you can almost always see mail that was improperly filtered and “train” it by hitting the “Not Spam” button (though that can take several tries; you can also set up “Filters,” including “Never put mail from thisistrue.com in spam.”)

Related Links

  • The Premium FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.
  • My own Internet Spam Primer, which helps you understand spam issues — and the “innocent casualties” of the spam “war”: mail you want!