Randy Cassingham's Blog

While I'm certainly saddened to hear this, I'm also not surprised. It disturbs me more though to know that a publication as old as yours, with such an exemplary reputation, can be hit this hard by a few of the idiots who just don't have the sense or the common courtesy to properly unsubscribe.

I guess most of those are folks who were afraid they'd show up in an issue, and not in the comments section :-), before too long.

*sigh* The worst part is that there's no way now for you to actually reach those folks who still wish to receive True, and this problem is only likely to get worse.

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Yeah, I predicted it too -- in 1996 when I first wrote the editorial that became the Spam Primer. It actually took longer than I thought it would. It's still depressing. -rc

I (obviously) work for Yahoo! - not for Mail, but for another property. I have a paid subscription going to my personal domain, and if you contact me at my work email address with some details, I will forward them on to the mail team and ask them to please work with you on the issue.

It's unfortunate that so many people "forget" that they subscribed to the list and mark the emails as spam. I hope to help you fix it.

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Thanks, Jonathan: I'll have e-mail waiting for you Monday morning, and I hope you can indeed help. -rc

Sent a link and a personal note to friends who I think would really enjoy This is True. Tomorrow, I will spam everyone I know. Just kidding.

I'm hoping my personal experience being a premium subscriber will encourage some friends to subscribe to the free or premium editions.

I cringed everytime I added a yahoo address to the addressees. Hope they got my note!

Keep it up Randy, we will get through this tough patch. I'm between jobs right now, and This is True is a bright spot in my week.

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Thanks, Doug: it always helps to hear from others who are also going through rough times. -rc

What would the world be without "True." After reading your comments I sent a link to your home page to everyone in my address book that would be interested. Not quite 50 but close.

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Thanks, Ron. Much appreciated. -rc

I just thought I'd let you know that as the email admin for a small ISP, we've had rules in place for several years now to keep "This Is True" out of our spam filters, even when your newsletter discusses topics that might otherwise trigger them.

I've also just posted a recommendation (with the True-a-Day widget) on one of my blogs, and I'll be posting a brief write-up of this issue on another.

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It is appropriate to whitelist mailers you know to be legit, so thanks for that, as well as helping to "spread the word". Indeed the True-a-Day feature is a great way to help spread the word, as well as have fun content on your site. -rc

Hi Randy, I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. I agree, this is very serious.

While you're waiting for Jonathan & Yahoo to get back to you, there is something that you can do as well.

If you can get someone to implement SPF & DomainKeys for your outgoing email, then you may be able to reduce the impact of this problem in the future.

If you have this up & running, and Yahoo's email team agreed to whitelist your domain - then even better. You won't see this problem again.

That's it, until your Gmail subsribers started hitting "Report this as spam" button :-)

Hope it helps.

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I have had an SPF record for years. I'll look into DomainKeys when it's not past midnight after a long, hard day. Thanks! -rc

There is certainly some irony that stupid, lazy people have condemned 'True' to being more spam because they cannot be bothered to click 'unsubscribe', but that would mean having to actually click on the message first! I'm mean let's face it, some people wouldn't get out of bed if work would pay them to stay there, rather than sit in a shop, mostly unsupervised, doing nothing all day. It's a sad fact of the dumbed down society we're breeding.

That said, the blame this time does lie at Yahoo's door, because if they could understand the concept that people actually asked for it, twice effectively, then maybe they would do something about it. So I think a campaign is needed where by those of us who have yahoo accounts (but wisely don't use them for 'true') should mail off a standard letter to Yahoo explaining the problem and why we choose not to use Yahoo, and how many of us may not use our Yahoo address at all because of the hassle of checking more than one account! We don't see their targeted adverts etc. I was told long ago that if you want to change something you have to hit the purse strings. I'm sure many of your supporters would go along with this concept.

Well, my e-mail is through Yahoo, and I've been trying to use Yahoo Help to contact them... but when I try to use their "Contact Us" link to e-mail them about this issue, I keep getting cycled between a page that won't finish loading and a password request page. Hmph! In the meantime, I've signed up for This is True on my Gmail account.

Such an experience does not inspire ANY confidence in Yahoo for me! I suppose this explains some of their market share losses.

Sorry to hear about your dilemma Randy. It's sad when someone legitimate gets blocked because someone hits the wrong button while the real spammers find workarounds to Yahoo and others' spam filters on a daily basis and still get through.

I know this because I have a Yahoo email account that I'd like to quit using if only I could get a friends to quit sending me mail there. But to get to the point I get at least 5 to 10 pieces of spam in my inbox everyday that should have been caught by Yahoo's spam filters. It is obvious that the spammers change their "tactics" frequently so as to stay one step ahead of Yahoo, etc.

Seems to be a lose, lose situation.

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The way to get friends to stop sending you mail to your old address is to send them a message telling them your new address (assuming you DO want to hear from them), and then shutting the old one down. -rc

I scan my "Bulk" folder daily, (In fact multiple times a day) so if it goes there ... I'll "NOT SPAM" it.

Plus I think you are on my white list (Address book).

Though the address does not look like it (it's a reflector) my mail box is really Yahoo, or Yahoo alias (sbcglobal.net).

Helps if you use web mail that way you see your bulk folder; if you use client mail then you have the option of ignoring it.