Website Upgrade

[EllenD]

Kate, sorry to hear this ... sounds extremely frustrating.
I don't use gmail and am still receiving emails.

Can you believe it, this is so much of a widespread problem that there are actual websites about it?
https://www.rackaid.com/blog/gmail-blacklist-removal/

Reading about your experience with this, I'm not surprised. I had a quick look at that page ... you need a degree in IT to make sense of all that! I hope you find a solution soon ... I'm sure you can think of better things to do with your time.

Thank you, Kate, for all the time you've spent trying to straighten out this mess. I hope that once this is resolved though, that there is some course other than to suspend email notifications from the Forum about topic responses and PMs, as I really appreciate them and would very much miss them

I second that ...

[KateR]

Now, it just occurred to me that, I may be conflating email updates and email notifications. I'm not sure now that I ever received anything other than email notifications about responses to Forum topics and new PMs. Are "email updates" a different animal??!

The "email updates" I'm talking about are the messages for people who have signed up for the Mailing List (link on the homepage menu). Maybe once or twice a month I send out a mass email to everyone who subscribed, usually about 2000-3000 people. I don't know how many of those use gmail, but apparently if I were sending 5000 emails to gmail per DAY, that would be acceptable to Gmail, since it is a pattern. But if I send out a fraction of 2500 emails suddenly once or twice a month to announce an update in the website, THAT is considered suspicious, and so EVERYTHING gets blocked.

I had a thought... My main personal email is from my ISP, but I've had people tell me I should use gmail as my main email. Can you imagine if I did? My own email would block my own domain, and I wouldn't even get the bounce-back messages to know what was happening. In fact, the bounce-back messages are the only way I know that my messages aren't getting through. Otherwise, I would assume that people had recieved my responses, and they would be wondering why I never answered them.

Kate

[Skurk]

Kate, maybe i missread it, but Google won't answer. Instead you should try again after a while when you adjusted some parameters.
Meanwhile I've seen you're using mailman. Is it your installation or provided?
Anyway, I do think, we have a chance to fix it. I will try to learn this application and come back to you. Some of the suggestions i gave you are also on your referenced link. It is not easy to read. Don't worry.

[KateR]

Kate, maybe i missread it, but Google won't answer. Instead you should try again after a while when you adjusted some parameters.
Meanwhile I've seen you're using mailman. Is it your installation or provided?
Anyway, I do think, we have a chance to fix it. I will try to learn this application and come back to you. Some of the suggestions i gave you are also on your referenced link. It is not easy to read. Don't worry.

Mailman is what comes installed with cPanel. It's part of my package.

And believe me, I have not just been sitting waiting for a response from Google. Even my web host has been working on it, and kindly not even charging me for the time they are spending trying to figure this out. They have adjusted everything they possibly can from their end. They have checked blacklists to make sure that the domain has not been blacklisted, they are the ones who sent me that link, so at least they were able to understand it and take action. And every few days both they and I try sending another test message to gmail, and it bounces back.

In the meantime, I have submitted another formal request, and the response you get is "please allow 2 weeks between submissions." Not "please allow two weeks for a reply." In other words, you won't get a reply, but feel free to keep submitting every two weeks.

I even tried to find a phone number or a real person, and made several phone calls, but as you can imagine, that went nowhere.

So, we are still in the same place - everything has been adjusted, everything is still blocked, there is no explanation, and no way to fix it until Google gets off its a$$.

Kate

[Skurk]

hugs to you! I know, you're trying everything. Hope google will be more accommodating.

[LTTPlits]

Yikes! My sympathies, Kate. What a mess! Gah! And to think of all the time it may be taking away from other (more?) worthy endeavors (certainly more fulfilling!), like working on the MacGyver lexicon... As Hammond would say, "Godspeed!"

[KateR]

So here is an update... of sorts...

I tried sending another test email to jp from rdanderson.com to gmail, and incredibly it went through!

That's the good news. The bad news is that I never got a response from gmail, there is no way to know what triggered the problem, and since it has been exactly one month since gmail blocked my domain, their "solution" apparently is to just wait a month and automatically turn off the block.

Are people here who use gmail and subscribe to Forum notifications starting to get those notifications again? If so, then that suggests that the Forum was not the problem. I am assuming that it was the Mailing List Updates that was the problem, since apparently I don't send ENOUGH bulk mail to establish it as a "pattern." So I'm not sure if I'll be able to go back to sending those updates. If I do, there is a good chance I will be blocked again for another month.

So at least for now, I can respond to gmail messages again, and the Forum notifications seen to be working. I'm going to wait a bit before I remove the alert from the homepage since I don't know if the solution will last, and I think it is important for people to know that gmail is randomly censoring their messages.

Fingers crossed that the problem is over for now...

Kate

[Skurk]

Maybe the problem is to send them at once.
I've read the manual of your mailman and since there is no way to send them in smaller amounts you have to configure it somewhere else. I'd suggest to ask your host if there are some possibilities. Even my own host has in it's manual that in case of newsletter Google reacts on "sudden" big bulks but not in many smaller bulks of 300 email addresses within an hour. Fingers crossed if you find a solution.

[KateR]

Google reacts on "sudden" big bulks but not in many smaller bulks of 300 email addresses within an hour. Fingers crossed if you find a solution.

I've considered that, but at that rate it would take me 10 hours to send out all the updates.

I've also considered using a service like Bravenet (which is now hosting the Fan Mail) instead, but you still have to give it an email address to have the messages sent FROM. So I thought of creating a new email, for example on Yahoo, for that. Google wouldn't dare ban all of Yahoo.

Or I could create a Gmail address to do it - Google banning Google could create a swirling vortex that would wipe out the internet.

The frustrating thing is that if I were sending a few thousand messages out EVERY DAY, Google wouldn't have a problem with it. It's only that it seems "unusual" when it happens once a month or so.

Kate

[Skurk]

Well, 10h means surely not everyone will get the news at the same time but all at the same day. That worries you maybe that some are getting it later than others? Hmmm.... I don't know all here in your rdanderson-world, but I think they would understand.
And it's the maschine which will do the work so no effort on your side...I hope