[Mailman-Users] Recent AOL thread

[David Relson]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:07:30 -0500
texas critter wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:22:41 +0200, Brad Knowles
> <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org> wrote:
> > At 2:38 PM -0500 2004-10-20, texas critter wrote:
> > 
> >         That assumes that AOL is giving you the correct error
> >         message for
> > the particular problem they actually detected.  Having worked the
> > other side of that particular fence, I can tell you that this is not
> > necessarily a valid assumption.
> 
> But the same error message over multiple mailings for *all* AOL list
> members over a week or more would indicate that it is correct.  With
> shared hosting, it's generally true, even of webhosts that don't want
> to host spammers, they often don't pay enough attention to their
> resellers' customers and will end up hosting spammers who get the
> server's IP address blacklisted.
> 
> >         These are good things to do no matter what, regardless of
> >         whether
> > or not AOL is accurately giving you the appropriate error message
> > for the problem they have detected.
> 
> Absolutely!  And anyone who's looking to sign up with a webhost should
> find out their IP ranges and check them *before* signing up.  I also
> recommend that anyone with a dedicated server sign up for the feedback
> loop as well.

Two years ago, my DSL provider (telocity/directv) left the business and
I switched to a local provider.  As a naive user, it never occurred to
me that a check would be of value.  The local provider was on a couple
of blacklists because of problems in years past.  I was able to resolve
the problems without a lot of effort (fortunately). So, yes, there _can_
be problems!

David