TOPIC:

Hi Peter. I am now having the same problem with my Yahoo mail all of a sudden. Have you been able to resolve it?

The setup of the email relaying is rather strange and I wonder if that is making our emails look more like spam.

Shelly Ryder
Apex Toastmasters
Club 8213

Yahoo is well-known for being regularly tagged as a sender of spam. Usually, the spam designation expires after a period of time, but if you want to fix the problem once and for all, the best solution is changing email providers. (In my opinion, at least)

This is a yahoo problem, you need to contact yahoo and give them an ear full.

Hi Brian and Jane. I do not believe it is a Yahoo problem that they can solve. It seems rather to be a problem with the Toastmasters server (or spam control software) flagging Yahoo as a spam email. Case in point -- I can email all of our officers individually using their real email addresses, and they all receive it -- not as spam. It is only the group email addresses of "members" and "officers" that are sent through the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. address with the "On Behalf of" subject line that are getting flagged as spam. Can you please forward this to whoever can interact with the Toastmasters spam service to unflag Yahoo senders as spam? As you know, it's a very important tool to be able to email our officers and members with a single group email address.

Best regards,
Shelly

Ok, let's get past the finger pointing, folks. That is not helpful or constructive. So, you get one of my long posts!

Shelly: I am the current developer for FreeToastHost in addition to answering support posts as an FTH Ambassador. I took over the development piece in July 2013--I am not the original developer and there are certain code areas that I am still getting familiar with. I am doing this as a volunteer as my time permits, working with limited resources in service of Toastmasters worldwide. As far as the code development "team", I am basically it right now. I purposely do not try to answer every support post anymore because I would not get anything else done if I did.

With that said, I think you are presuming some things that are just incorrect. I know because I am looking at the actual code and I am going to be working on the email handler code in the next few weeks. I have not implemented any email handler changes yet. I have made changes to the *membership* code--part of that code is the "gate keeper" that determines who is a valid sender or a valid recipient for club emails.

So, here is what is *real* from my examination of the *actual* email handler code...

We do have special handling for Yahoo email because the Yahoo email headers are a little bit different than everyone else. I did not develop that special handling code but it is in there--I have examined it.

Our email handler code is where the "On Behalf Of" is inserted. *We* put that in there when we convert from members@ and officers@ (and others) to the actual valid email address equivalents in the email handler code. The emails do *not* typically come to us with that phrase in them. Still think that phrase is tripping our spam control?

"Toastmasters spam service" Huh??? There is no such thing that I am aware of. You are assuming that we are somehow directed by TM Intl. No, for the most part, we are working independently.

The bottom line is that our email handler code receives the emails send to club email addresses, dissects the email headers to pull out the different parts of it (To address, From address, etc.), looks up the addresses from the header in the club's membership info (to serve as a gatekeeper to prevent spam), bounces any BCC (spam control), converts FTH special email addresses to actual email addresses for valid senders/recipients, takes care of special routing needs (e.g., replies to agenda emails), creates bounce messages if needed, and then sends the emails on to the actual email addresses. The email handler code is a complex 900 lines of code that are always working 24/7--it is integral to the FTH system.

Everyone: Here is the big gotcha that I see *everyone* missing... If a particular email service changes the structure of their email headers, it could break our email handler code for those emails. But an email service would never change their header structure, right?

Now before everyone gets all nervous, remember that I am going to be digging into the email handler code here shortly anyway... that was already planned.

Shelly:

Yahoo has become a major spammer and is listed by several real time block lists. Yahoo needs to get their house in order.

Please check your bounce messages it will have a line something like

Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 Mail from 98.139.212.175 refused because IP is on SpamCop - see spamcop.net/bl.shtml

When you go to spamcop and put in the IP address you will see a report like this

98.139.212.175 listed in bl.spamcop.net (127.0.0.2)
If there are no reports of ongoing objectionable email from this system it will be delisted automatically in approximately 19 hours.

Causes of listing
System has sent mail to SpamCop spam traps in the past week (spam traps are secret, no reports or evidence are provided by SpamCop)
SpamCop users have reported system as a source of spam less than 10 times in the past week
Additional potential problems
(these factors do not directly result in spamcop listing)
Too many delisting requests per last year were made
Because of the above problems, express-delisting is not available
Listing History
In the past 38.0 days, it has been listed 14 times for a total of 29.0 days
Other hosts in this "neighborhood" with spam reports
98.139.212.126 98.139.212.127 98.139.212.154 98.139.212.155 98.139.212.160 98.139.212.163 98.139.212.165 98.139.212.166 98.139.212.179 98.139.212.180 98.139.212.186 98.139.212.187 98.139.212.188 98.139.212.196 98.139.212.206 98.139.212.225 98.139.212.235 98.139.213.39 98.139.213.55 98.139.213.74 98.139.213.79 98.139.213.95 98.139.213.126 98.139.213.127 98.139.213.138 98.139.213.140 98.139.213.141 98.139.213.144 98.139.213.145 98.139.213.147 98.139.213.148 98.139.213.150 98.139.213.151 98.139.213.152 98.139.213.154 98.139.213.158 98.139.213.161 98.139.213.162 98.139.213.163 98.139.213.164

The other thing is that just because you can send directly to club members does not mean that you should automatically get through the FTH email handler. The FTH bar for spam control has to be higher because of the number of people and clubs that get affected if we are not checking things like SpamCop as Brian is mentioning. We have to check those things.