Re: The profile of a conlanger (fwd)

I'm sorry that sounded so rude, Irina.

I'm just trying this new provider out right now to see how it works.
If it ends up infuriating people too much I will go back.  (I haven't
switched my conlang mail to it yet except for the "reply-to" which I
left on there without thinking, which caused your message to get
diverted there.)

I have had big problems with spam on some accounts and the idea of a
provider that goes to great lengths to prevent it is a wonderful
thing.  If the means of doing so offend people though, it won't be
worth it.

If a message comes in from someone who the system doesn't already
know to be a human being, it goes into a special "potential spam"
folder, and I can go in there, see that it's not really spam, and put
the sender on the "key list" of people whom it's OK to receive mail
from.

So yes, I can receive email there from people without web access.
And once a sender has been verified they will never receive an email
like that again.

And you can go in and pre-emptively verify mail from certain email
addresses; I had done so already with most of my regular
correspondents when I moved to the service.

But again, I apologize for the rude note from my provider.  I'll give
them some feedback about the offense it caused.  There has to be a
more informative or politic way to put it.  And it wouldn't hurt if
there was a way to self-verify thru email.

-------------------------------------------------
             edheil@postmark.net
-------------------------------------------------

Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:

> I accidentally sent a reply to Ed personally, instead of to the list
> (forgot to mind the reply-to) and got a very strange message from
> Ed's new service provider. My comments are in {curly brackets}.
>
> Ed, can *you* tell them that it's OK to receive mail from me? I don't
> think I want to go along with this. It's not done to force people to
> go somewhere to confirm that you want to send mail - that effectively
> stops people sending mail if they have no web access.
>
>    Irina
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
> From spamtest@msgto.com Fri Oct 29 11:08:46 1999
> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 04:35:04 -0400 (EDT)
> From: MsgTo.com AntiSpam Service <spamtest@...>
> To: ira@rempt.xs4all.nl
> Subject: Re: Your message to edward@msgto.com
>
>     [ Part 1, Text/PLAIN  10 lines. ]
>     [ Unable to print this part. ]
>
> {But it says the same as the following - they don't know, or don't
> want to know, that not everybody wants HTML mail}
>
> MsgTo.com Spam Protection Test
>
> You recently sent an email to edward@msgto.com.
>
> {Yes, I realize that now. My mistake, apparently.}
>
> edward@msgto.com uses MsgTo's unique system to eliminate spam and take
> control of email.
>
> {"Take control of email"? Who - Ed or his provider? Of course Ed
> should have control of his own email, but I don't think his provider
> should.}
>
> Since this is your first email message to edward@msgto.com, please verify
> that you are an individual sender, and not a bulk email sender, by
> following the instructions on the image below.
>
> {Images in mail are also not done}
>
> MsgTo.Com Spam Protection Test
>
>                                     [IMAGE]
>
> If the image above did not display, or you were not able to click on it,
> please try to click the following link:
>
http://aleph.msgto.com/servlet/TuringServlet/test/1107309724.941186103334.1372
7
>
> {I can try all I like, but I'm using text mode. Dear msgto.com. not
> everybody uses a web browser to read their mail; not everyone even
> has something to click with. I can highlight it and press Enter, and
> I've even trained Pine to start Lynx when I do that, but I keep my
> mail activity separate from my WWW activity and I'm not online all
> the time, so Lynx can't reach it. It's very uncivil to assume that
> people have permanent web access and not to provide an alternative}
>
> If you want to learn more: What is This?
>
> {No, I don't want to learn more; I want you (that is msgto.com; I'm
> not blaming Ed for using an incompetent provider) to offer a way
> for people without web access to send mail, and to learn that there
> are people who use text-only for mail by choice or necessity. The
> whole thing gives me an eerie feeling that msgto.com assumes that if
> you can't click a link you're a spammer; very uncomfortable}
>
>
>             Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
>                      irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
>        http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
>     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)
>