A theory

[gw]

I think I figured out what is causing these these bogus spam complaints, for my list at least. I run a showdog list where everyone knows everyone and nobody as the slightest clue that they have generated a spam complaint from AOL or hotmail. They would never do so intentionally.

Dog show people have huge egos and brag a LOT, and their content and tag lines are triggering the poorly written spam filters at AOL & hotmail/msn. One person posts a message and the list delivers the message to the rest, some of whom had these spam filters turned on. I told everyone to shut those things off if they want to stay on the list because we are certainly not going to stop bragging.

Anyway I am fairly sure that is a pattern I recognized.

[Buck]

I think it's more basic than that, I've decided AOL users are just dumb.

I sent out a 100% legit message to our list. Plain text, with 3 links (all to the same place) in the body. It's practically the same exact message I send out at this time every year, and every year I get TOS violation notices, and they are always (A-L-W-A-Y-S) from an AOL user.

[Erica C.]

I have changed the welcome message on two lists I manage to include a special note for AOL users. It encourages them to be sure all people who use their email account know they've joined the list and requests that no one there report a message that they asked to receive as spam. It was really bothersome to keep getting the TOS violation notices on messages containing (all text) coupons that people had signed up to receive using an opt in process.

I only made the change recently but so far so good. I figure it's worth a try. :dunno:

Erica

[Andilinks]

...that no one there report a message that they asked to receive as spam. I suspect that the problem lies with the way 'spam' is defined within the walled garden and less with user intelligence. I was an AOL member in 1993 when "browser" denoted a type of feeding or shopping and I cancelled AOL in 2003, so I do understand that mentality.

This may be a problem without a solution but if it were my problem I would follow Erica's lead but take it one step further and do my best to reach the people within AOL who have the power to change things. Since it seems to be an ongoing thing I would rewrite and resend my complaint to them on a regular basis.

Now with Gmail, when you define (click) a piece of mail as spam I don't think the definition goes beyond your own mail box. I think that's where AOL is getting it wrong and needs to be corrected.

It's either that or just write-off AOL members as mail recipients entirely because no matter how sincere a person is when they sign up for a recurring message, that message can one day become spam to them.

Because "spam" is defined in the recipient's mind, not the sender's.

Or maybe George is right—it's a bravado filter and there's no cure for bravado.