TOPIC:

Hello,
I know there have been support requests before on this topic, but the suggestion was only to forward the offending emails. I received 32 of them yesterday and this is typical. Add to that the spam emails I receive as a result of having two websites with contact pages and email addresses posted on them, I receive an inundation of junk emails every day. Unfortunately, the email addresses associated with the spam via my Toastmasters club are different almost every time, so adding them to a list of addresses for Free Toast Host not to forward on to me will probably not help. Please let me know if you still want me to forward those or if it is a lost, cause.

Thank you.
Marina Kirsch
President, Exeter Speak-Ups Club

1) Please post your club number in every post

2) We do not post or recommend posting of any email addresses on any FTH webpages, if your club has done that I suggest your remove them.

3) Your site has a black list that you can black list emails you do not want talk to your site admin.

4) your site admin can increase the spamassasin threshold to stop more spam.

Well, the only thing I can tell you right now is to black list the senders via your club black list or decrease your club's spam assassin threshold.

Those are the features i put in place in version 2.2 specifically to address spam for specific clubs...

I will be putting a couple of new features in place in the next system update to make it easier to black list spam senders, but for now, what you got is the black list and the spam threshold.

Brian wrote:

4) your site admin can increase the spamassasin threshold to stop more spam.

No, Brian, *decrease* it.

Hello,
I am the web admin for our site. Is Spam Assassin something that I can access via the admin console on our website or via the Free Toast host website? I don't see it in the console. Please advise and if the website, please send a URL. Thank you.

As for blacklisting, I tried that and it did not decrease the # of emails at all because the address is different almost every time . Also, the process of blacklisting so many emails each day was adding to the burden.

Thanks.

Marina
Club # 8700

The spam assassin threshold is at the bottom of the same admin console tab as where you enter email addresses in the black list.

Maybe I am missing something, but I cannot find the 'tab' to enter the black-listed addresses. Please point me in the right direction.

Login as admin, select module "Email and Contact Forms" from the dropdown list above the admin console. A new console will open. Select the "Email Security" tab
support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/email-and-contact-forms

Hello Scott,
I drove myself crazy for a while trying the blacklisting. Every time a group of spam emails came in with the "Toastmasters club 8700 on behalf of" in the reply field, I would enter the email address in the email security black list area. Unfortunately the email addresses seem to change all the time even for the same advertisement, so it was totally ineffective and just drove me crazy due to the time spent on this and the interruptions to my work day. I decided to lower the spam assassin threshold a couple of days ago from 5.0 to 4.6. I am guardedly optimistic that this is helping because yesterday I received only 6 of those emails instead of 32. The danger in lowering this is the possibility that an important email might be missed, but with this small amount of lowering it is probably unlikely based on the information I have read. Hope this helps.

Thank you to the forum tech support!
Marina

Hi Marina - spam has not (so far) been a big problem for my clubs. In fact, I have only received (1) so far. I was curious about if and how FTH dealt with SPAM or PHISHING, which brought me to this forum for answers. Since I have luckily only had one case of spam in the last 10 years or so, this implies that my clubs have largely been absent from the databases used by the spammers - but since I did receive one yesterday, I guess our invisibility cloak is starting to show some wear and tear.

Thank you for the info on spam assassin - if my spam count goes up, I may contact you again to see how 4.6 is working for you, and follow your lead.

~ Scott

Thanks Pam - as always, I do love the support obtained from this forum - you guys are GREAT.

~ Scott

For future reference related to spam assassin threshold, the following is the reference webpage on this that I included in the v_More_v info section for Spam Assassin in the Email Security tab: taint.org/2008/02/29/155648a.html

The reference is a bit old (I could not find a better reference that was newer) but I still think the information is useful.