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2018-04-12 Mailing list delivery problems

Due to something my server host did, many mail servers are bouncing or silently vanishing list mail from tardigrade.net. Most of the problems should improve with time (a few weeks). Some (yahoo, aol, etal.) probably won't because they inherently break mailing lists. If you're subscribed to a list but not getting mail, you can read the web archives, and still post via email. You will need your subscriber password to read the archives, though that will probably change in the future. Please don't post personal data to any mailing list! None are truly private. It isn't possible to remove messages from the archives once they're in there.

Clicktrain archives

Things that may help:

Clicktrain subscriber settings

For subscribers on yahoo, aol, or any other service that uses yahoo or aol to provide mail service, such as bellsouth and verizon, or others that use yahoo's stupid DMARK scheme which breaks mail:

There doesn't seem to be a good resolution. DMARK abhors mailing lists, and no matter what, they'll sooner or later (usually sooner) bounce enough mail to have mailman set your status to nomail (5 bounces). Changes to the list that sometimes improve things a little bit for DMARK make it worse for other users.

The current options:

This isn't only a problem for us, but for all mailing lists. A list I'm on which has been active for over 30 years has been having enough trouble that they've just started sending mail via an $80/month mail sending service, with no guarantee that it will help.

Mailing lists

Publicly available lists

tardigrade.net is now using mailman for mailing lists. You can control your settings at a web page. To get to your settings page, go to the list information page for your list and follow the link at the top. You can also type in the link below, and replace 'listname' with the name of your list:

http://tardigrade.net/mailman/options/listname

Official mailman list member documentation

Notice to Yahoo & AOL subscribers

and others not getting all mail from tardigrade.net

Subscribers using yahoo.com, aol.com, or other email service that implements DMARK bouncing, will not have a good list experience. At the best, messages will likely be delayed by 4 hours or more. Because DMARK rejects so much valid mail, subscribers will also probably be automatically unsubscribed frequently without notice (because the notice would also be rejected).

You may have somewhat fewer problems if you switch to the digests, but there's no guarantee.

I strongly suggest that at least for list mail, you get an email account with a responsible service. The best choice I've found is fastmail.com, which is $30 per year, but in addition to well run and secure email, it has many useful extra features, such as fetching your mail from your other email accounts to have it all in one place, and web space for photo galleries or sharing files.

https://fastmail.com

If you can't pay for email, a good free alternative for light use (less than 150 messages per day) is Proton Mail. It has a web interface (many of the features are only available for paid accounts), and there are also mobile apps.

https://protonmail.com

There is one other possible workaround for lists that have archives. If you subscribe to the list then set your subscription options for "Mail delivery" to 'disable', you can read the messages in the web archive even if the archives are limited to subscribers, and still post to the list. Since no list mail will be sent to you, it won't bounce and cause you to be unsubscribed.


Send mail to the WebMonster: webmonster via tardigrade.net