[GreenKeys] Frickin' Problems Posting to Greenkeys

[gil at baudot.net]

Hi folks:

Well, I am the greenkeys moderator, so this falls in my area of
responsibility.  I have been pretty swamped lately, and have not been
able to follow all the traffic 100% as I usually do, but there have
been numerous posting problems that have been mentioned recently, and I
should say a thing or two.

Not too long ago, there were mail problems with Cox and a few other ISPs
-- this was a problem with the ISP's spam blacklists preventing traffic
to/from mailing lists such as greenkeys.  Users' mail would get bounced
back to greenkeys (to me), as potential spam, and greenkeys would
eventually automatically suspend user's subscriptions until I
intervened.  Even though I would re-enable user accounts, these
problems only really got resolved by users pressuring the ISPs to allow
greenkeys traffic (or, more generally, qth.net traffic).  This is
something that will simply happen from time to time, as spam filters
get tightened everywhere.  It seems to happen more on the big ISPs,
since they generally have more spam control.  I do not know of any ISP
bounce issues at the moment.

The current issue, related to html posts, is nothing new.  Posts in html
have never been allowed on greenkeys, nor have attached files.  I can't
say for sure just why, but there is likely some spam-related reason. 
Html posts are not limited to simple font changes, bold, italic, and
other passive cosmetic tweaks, but may have the potential for more
harmful content. Don't ask me for details since I do not even try to
keep up on ridiculous state of computing today.  I just try to get by
from day to day like everybody else.  But I do my best to keep
greenkeys traffic flowing, and hopefully keep everyone communicating.

If you have a way to turn off html content in your email posts, great. 
If aol is actually inserting html ads or stuff, out of the user's
control, I do not know how to deal with that.  It would seem pragmatic
for greenkeys to simply strip off the html tags and let the plain text
through, but I do not know of a way to do that -- I will, however, ask
the folks at qth.net for more information on this pronlem, and let you
know if I can find a solution.  

It is strange that some aol users have problems and some don't.  Dunno
why.

I'll let you know what I find out.  If you want to add another email
account for just posting, let me know and I will set it up for you. 
Maybe you can still receive greenkeys traffic at aol just fine, but
need to post from hotmail for now.  Let me know, and I'll do what I
can.

In the mean time, I would recommend that you not lose too much sleep
over it -- maybe go to blockbuster and rent any season of Larry David's
Curb Your Enthusiasm, or perhaps Terry Gilliam's Brazil.  Anything to
put a smile back on your face.

I will let you know what I find out.

thanks,

gil