This morning while answering the emails that came in overnight, I have already had 3 of the replies I made to questions asked, returned due to the recipient's email program not "recognizing" my email name/address. I was informed that in order for my response to be allowed into the recipient's email box, I would have to follow a link and click on a few things to have my response accepted. Sorry, I won't do it. I'm not going to jump through hoops in order to provide help someone has solicited from me. It's their job to make sure my response can get through. I barely have time to offer answers or help anyway and expecting me to do extra work in order to gain access to your email in-box (to give you help you solicited from me in the first place) is just asking too much.

I remind some of you about this because I'm sure the same thing happens when you email a supplier or manufacturer and then think that they never answer you. They probably do answer, but your email program blocks their response and like me, they are just far too busy to have to jump though hoops to provide you with information you solicited from them in the first place.

So I remind you again, if you employ junk or spam mail filters and you ask someone a question or solicit information via email, it's your job to make sure their response can get through to you.


................

This is the sort of message that those of us responding to requests for help do not want to see:




I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request:



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2005 09:29AM by Tom Kirkman.

I work in IT and administer a couple of email servers. I get calls from our users saying that they can't send to some one and I have them send me the response and many of them are just as Tom stated in his post. Then they want to know how to get around it cuz it is just to much work. You tell them that if they want to send email to this person they have to follow the stated procedure and you can just hear them mutter not so nice stuff under their breath. I and most others realize that SPAM is a pain in the you know what, but these kind of filters are not the answer.

If you use a SPAM filter such as one of those expect people you want to get email from to not bother going through all the trouble to send to you.

One of the best ways to not get SPAM is to not use your email address when you fill out online forms unless you know that these folks are reputable. Many sell those email addresses to SPAMMERS. If you don't give them your address you aren't going to get it.

AMEN !!! If I am trying to do you a favor, PLEASE make doing that favor for you as reasonably easy as possible. That's just common courtesy and common sense. Which has become all too UNCOMMON in this land of prima donnas and ingrates and entitlement-minded slackards.

Mr. Kirkman - THANK YOU for your conscientious and GRATIS service to your RBO community, and for guarding the integrity and reliability of the advice here, and the dignity of this society.

To borrow from what JFK said: Ask not only what your fellow rod-builder can do for YOU, but also ASK YOURSELF what YOU can do for your fellow rod-builder.

You'll make the world a better place, and have lots more fun, and make more friends in the process. Help when you can. Acknowledge good intentions. Say thanks. Avoid stupidity. Get a clue. Nice guys finish well in the long run. Be one. LOL, -Cliff Hall+++

P.S. - "LOL" as I use it always means any or all of the 3 standard forms:
Mostly "Lots of Luck"; or "Laugh out Loud"; and sometimes "Lots of Love". I had some one contact me directly and that became a point of misunderstanding somehow. He thought I was mocking him, when I meant good luck. Some people are just plain difficult, and make even kindness or backing out quietly a chore. LOL, -CMH+++



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2005 11:33AM by Cliff Hall.

It happens less than more, and my point is not to give anyone a hard time, but rather to remind people that when they ask for help and then don't get it, it may well be that the person they asked did, in fact, attempt to provide that answer or that help, but were unable to get past a spam filter and did not have the time to fill out even a short form or perform a series of tasks to get through.

..............

I wouldn't doubt that there are some out there who don't even realize that there email/computer is set up that way, too.

I've found that the Norton spam grabber on mine is very quirky. I was going back and forth with someone last week and all of a sudden, no response from him. I thought I'd heard an email chime in, so I checked the anti-spam folder and there was (probably the 4th or 5th) his response. His email address is in my accepted and we'd had, like I said, 4 or so very recent emails with him without problem??? Weird...

Putter
Williston, ND

I have McAfee and have not had any problems with it Go figure.

Bill

Maybe you have it turned off!

Stan

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

I could not agree more with Tom on this one. There are certainly valid reasons for employing automated aids and security devices. However, I wouldn't waste my time either responding through a gatekeeper and a series of hoops.

Joe Douglas

Think I do Stan Don't want to miss any thing

Personally, I would never even consider using a pop up blocker or spam filter. I think that both have a much larger downside than up! Control your cookies and regularly update and run a program such as Ad-Aware and you will never have a problem with pop ups. As far as Spam, the same things will help. Avoid e-mailing people that you receive forwarded e-mail (jokes, etc) because if they are forwarding mail to you, chances are that they are forwarding your e-mails to others who in turn forward them.. This can result in your e-mail address ending up in the headings of millions of e-mails within days. I rarely open forwarded e-mail. I have received e-mails that have been forwarded so many times that there are litterally 100's of addresseson them. I have received jokes that I sent to friends, back from others months later with numerous forwarded headings on them. Since I quit that, I get no more than 2 or 3 junk e-mails a month and rarely get a pop up!!

Sorry for the rant, but as a recently retired IT, this is a sore point because over the years at that job, I have found that the vast majority of problems are caused by the user and adding a piece of software cannot replace common sense and think for you. I would never let a machine decide what I get to see or read!!! Off of Soap Box!!

Mike

Ditto, Mike Barkley!!

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

I have recently decided that there is no one that I need to talk to bad enough to fill out the "admission
form" to their world. I get very frustrated at people who do this but I also remember when I was getting between 100 and 150 emails a day from "unwanted sources". Mike has a good point that we only need to be smart about how we handle the situation. I now monitor my cookies and dont open anything where I dont recognize the originator. I am sure that I miss a few things but it is not hard to tell the spam from the real thing in a large percentage of the messages. I also use the spam limiter and by putting the addresses of the most frequent violators and the persistent senders into a blocker, I have reduced my load from the previous highs to around 10-20 messages a day. That may sound like a lot but it only takes me a few seconds each day to DELETE the unwanted messages. What I am left with is the ones I do want to deal with and I dont have to worry much about them. BUT I am available to send a message to without someone having to fill out a loan request at the email bank (that is what it feels like...).
Dave