How do you deal with Spam FILTERS

[crokett]

I dunno. I like my solution better. I just make it your problem to talk to me. If you want to, you will try hard enough. I don't even open all those chain letters and latest virus warnings from all my well-meaning relatives. Those go straight to trash.

[Mr__Bill]

Who cares? They ain't getting thru unless you think they are going to take the time to authenticate themselves just to send me an extra-special Nigerian money laundering scheme? Doesn't matter how many emails they send, I don't see 'em.



Again, who cares? If they get pissed off over a one-time inconvenience of 30 seconds, after which they never see anything other than regular email correspondence, well, I guess they didn't want to talk to me very bad after all, now did they

Well, lets see, if you run your own mail server you care because all the spam gets there, takes up cycles and bandwidth to get to the filter.

Again, if you can afford to loose potential customers, then why care. If however every customer is important to you, then you care. If I e-mail 10 suppliers for info and 9 reply and one sends me a confirmation routine you can guess who I will follow up on and who is forgotten.

I expect that you don't walk down the street letting $10 bills loose in the wind. Not catering to the customer and encouraging communication is doing just that, without the fun of watching people run into traffic to get the money.

Now if we are talking about all the mail with jokes and whatnot that may be clogging your inbox, then sure, loose a few and who cares.

Bill

[leehljp]

OK Fellows, Mr. Bill and Doug get "my" point.

Would you like to have your priest, doctor, pastor or councilor have the attitude of - "if you really want me, you will have to find me. If your contact information gets lost, hidden or deleted or moved to the spam folder, I don't really care. I have my system and you just have to fit to it." This makes very it difficult for one in need to do that. IF somebody in your family is dying, sick, depressed, looking for some guidance, lost a job, just looking for someone to listen to them . . . etc, they really would like to be able to contact someone.

The whole world is not exactly like the US of A, and getting phone numbers is not exactly easy. Outside of the US of A, phones are not always the first line of communication, email is because it is less personal and allows the person in need to "feel out" the situation before making a direct leap through phoning.

USA churches want to contact me don't always have my phone number. A friend or relative gives them my email address. (No I can't make every relative contact me beforehand that they are giving my email address away. That sounds far to guarded and like I am exclusive.) So email is the first line of contact.

Here in Japan, in my line of work, I am getting contacts in the 10 million metro area from people who "find" my name and email through their contacts and friends from people in Osaka, Tokyo and back in the States. I work with many of those who contact me this way.

MY SPAM RULE:
I have my spam filter set up like this - If their name or address is in my address book, it is not spam, and goes to the inbox or special box for that name. AFter the first time of reading a legitimate email, I add it in.

CONFIRMATION is something that I have thought of, but it will drive a tensive person away, the very ones that I do not want to miss. To Japanese, "confirmation" through phone email is difficult and setting this up in written Japanese is also difficult. (More than 50 % of Japan's email is done through text messaging.)


EMAIL ATTITUDE DIFFERENCES:
I see two distinct differences here in email attitude -

1. My email is "my" private domain, even in the business world. No one gets to me except under "my" control. If you really want me - call me. Email is not for initiating a business contact. This philosophy is good for privacy and not intended for business expansion.

2. Email is the public and first contact point. Good source for business, not intended for privacy. Removes "personal" interaction for timid or tensive persons, and allows both parties to determine if they want to move forward in the business relationship and have direct interaction. (Lots of people or "customers' like this.)

In Japan, (and in the US in church situations), web and email are often the first points of contact. So, number 2 is how I have to deal with email. I do know a few missionaries who treat email in the same way as number 1 and I also suspect that they prevent contacts from reaching them.


THANKS for all the input. This has been interesting.

[crokett]

Hank,

My private email is just that - private. My family has it. Other folks outside my family (such as the other mods here) have it. If those folks want to get in touch with me, they won't get dumped to spam. My family knows I don't want my email given out to anybody else without at least letting me know they did so.

If I were a doctor, lawyer, priest or in your situation where I received unsolicited mail from clients, patients, etc then I would have to modify my policies. I'm not, so I can get away with what I do.

My work email has a good spam filter but I don't control that one. The occasional email gets through that may or may not be spam. Since those might be business related I do check those before deleting if necessary.

[leehljp]

Hank,

My private email is just that - private. My family has it. Other folks outside my family (such as the other mods here) have it. If those folks want to get in touch with me, they won't get dumped to spam. My family knows I don't want my email given out to anybody else without at least letting me know they did so.

If I were a doctor, lawyer, priest or in your situation where I received unsolicited mail from clients, patients, etc then I would have to modify my policies. I'm not, so I can get away with what I do.

My work email has a good spam filter but I don't control that one. The occasional email gets through that may or may not be spam. Since those might be business related I do check those before deleting if necessary.

I have 5 accounts:

1. A USA cable account at my house that our daughter keeps up.
2. A USA land line dial-up that is fairly well nationwide. When traveling, and often in small towns or as a guest in many homes not yet in the 20th century technological wise, a dial up is still necessary.

Two accounts in Japan that are the same as the above situation. (3) My local cable ISP does not have a dial up - but when traveling, (4) I sometimes need a dial-up as my only means to check email.

Then I have a secure account that is private. In all of this, I have 47 email folders in my email program in which all recognized mail is routed into. Not huge, but not a standard "inbox."

Email saves our organization well over a million dollars a year in postage. 99% of all correspondence is done this way and of course a lot faster than snail mail, especially when the international aspect is taken into account.

[crokett]

What if I simplify things for ya? I will send you an invite to gmail. Once you get that set up you can create as many accounts as you need and then have several web-based addresses. That way you only need access to the internet to check your mail from anywhere. The spam filters are VERY good, plus you can customize your own filters to label mail, delete it, forward it, etc. If you still want a mail client on your home PC, you can configure it to check gmail.

Actually if anybody else wants a gmail invite, PM me.

[Mr__Bill]

Sorry Dave, GMail doesn't require an invite any longer.

I will champion a service called Spamgourme.com. There you can set up an account and generate as many unique e-mail addresses as you like and specify how many times it will work, track how often it is used and renew it if you want to receive more e-mail at that address. Spamgourme forwards the mail it receives to an address you specify. You can even send mail through them and have a specific Spamgourme address as the sender/return to address. Thus far Spamgourme has dumped about 112,000 spam messages for me.


Bill, who is as close to spam free an he will ever get

[dlminehart]

I've started using Mail on my Mac. It has a built-in spam filter that can be trained to improve reliability. By default, it just changes the color of the email in the list to a light orange. Legible but relatively inconspicuous. After you're happy with the results of the trained filter, you can have it automatically move files to a Spam folder instead of leaving them mixed in the the regular stuff.

[leehljp]

I've started using Mail on my Mac. It has a built-in spam filter that can be trained to improve reliability. By default, it just changes the color of the email in the list to a light orange. Legible but relatively inconspicuous. After you're happy with the results of the trained filter, you can have it automatically move files to a Spam folder instead of leaving them mixed in the the regular stuff.

Mine does that now. The problem is the 1, 2 or 3 NEW but legitimate email per week that also goes into the spam folder. How do you deal with that? How do you train Mail to recognize "first time" email as legitimate? I don't think you can. So it goes to your spam folder. The question was concerning the legitimate first time email that goes to the spam folder.

If you don't know the person, if they are not in your address book or not in your mail program and you have never heard from them before, but they ARE legitimate email that are contacting you for the first time . . . This was the premise in the first post.

The best way so far (2), was A. by the fellows that sends a response back to the sender to verify that they sent an email, or B. Manually checking.

[Mr__Bill]

The best way so far (2), was A. by the fellows that sends a response back to the sender to verify that they sent an email, or B. Manually checking.

Hank, I think we have overlooked the most obvious way, by relying upon and looking for a technical solution.



You need an assistant.......


Bill, where it's today while it's tomorrow there.

[JimD]

For me, it depends on which spam filter you are talking about. My email account at work gets filtered by our IT deparment and I do not have any direct access to those email. Every once in awhile a customer gets caught but we have to use telephone discussions to correct it. One of my customers is a competitor of ours for different products so I have had a problem with their mail getting through. It takes a call to our out-sourced IT personnel to resolve. One of my customers who is never a competitor also was getting blocked and I was at his end for awhile too.

I also have the blocker built into Outlook I check regularly. I have not had it catch anything important but I still look at them before deleting them (I do not always open, depends on the addressee and subject).

I work in the nuclear field and do not get emails from companies I do not know - I think that helps.

We had a high level meeting with one of my customers a few months back and one of the Sr. VPs (well above my pay grade) was joking that if all of one type of advertisement worked like they say, one could have a particular part of his anatomy .....
About the time he said this, a female VP from the customer walked into the room. Our spam blocker from IP does not seem to catch the "male enhancement" ones or the Viagra ones (are they the same thing?).

Jim

[Ed62]

The tip I give people is to have two e-mail addresses, one that you ONLY give to friends and family. Use the other account to sign up for things online. If you need to enter an e-mail address in any online form (including registering at BT3Central) use the Spam account.

That's exactly what I've been doing for the last 6 months or so. When I go to my good address, I know it will only contain something I'm interested in seeing. If something should get lost in the other one, I don't worry about it at all.

Ed