[Mailman-Users] Our list serv host is threatening to shut us down for spam abuse

[Mark Sapiro]

On 06/16/2016 04:04 PM, Jim Dory wrote:
> So, anyone recommend more list-serv friendly hosts?


If you're looking for listserv(r), you're in the wrong place. See
<https://wiki.list.org/DOC/Mailman%20is%20not%20Listserv>.

To address your actual issue, the problem is your list members are
reporting list mail to their ISPs as spam. You MAY be able to address
this by education. You need to ensure that no one is added to the list
without opt-in and you need to remind members that if they don't want
list mail, their recourse should be to unsubscribe, and that reporting
some mail as spam will not result in selective filtering of some mail or
action against the posters of mail they don't like, it will onlt result
in all list mail being blocked for everyone.

You may be able to negotiate with your host over measures you can take,
but the main thing is to train users not to click the 'spam' button and
to give them easy ways to unsubscribe and to complain to you.

If you convince your host you are trying, they may understand, but they
are stuck - your user's spam reports are giving your server's IP a bad
reputation and causing all your mail and, if it's a shared host, other
customer's mail too to be blocked by various ISPs. The host has to
convince those ISPs that they are doing something about this.

In the long run, just switching hosts will not solve this problem if you
can't convince your users not to report mail from a list they signed up
for as spam.

You might try adding a msg_header and digest_header[1] with a "you are
receiving this mail because you subscribed to ... To unsubscribe, ...
Please don't report this as spam ..." type of message.

[1] Depending on your list's content filtering, and your user's MUAs,
*_header may be problematic and editing *_footer may be better. See
<https://wiki.list.org/x/4030707>.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan