# Please address replies to: BABA-L@pinefields.com
# To add, delete or change addresses, send a note to: baba-ad@pinefields.com
# Mail to baba-mail-daemon@pinefields.com will be discarded.

Subject: Baba-L Down - DO NOT REPLY!!!
From: Baba-L Administration <baba-ad@pinefields.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 08:16:38 -0400

Sigh... Comcast decided Baba-L is spam and shut down *all* of my e-mail
for 48 hours. Suffice it to say the telephone call to Comcast was not fun.

The problem is that Comcast views even a couple of thousand messages
(currently ten Baba-L mailings a day produces 1180 mailings to
subscribers) as spamming, regardless of content or intent. And there
is no hope of lifting that short of buying a commercial account. That
isn't about to happen.

At this point, there are three options:

1) Fold Baba-L, or find someone with the resources to handle the volume, as it
   currently exists.

2) Move Baba-L to Yahoo or a similar forum. Given Yahoo's penchant for
   spamming, their addition of ads that verge on scams (e.g., cell phone
   antenna ehnancers), and generally slovenly mail formatting, it might be a
   chilly day in Hades before I do that.

3) Send Baba-L mailings in a daily digest format. Apparently Copmcast doesn't
   seem to be troubled by 100+ notes of, say, 5 to 10K. This solution
   requires a significant programming effort to write a digester that also
   discards HTML, vcards, and tediously long quotes for short messages.

My inclination is to try option 3, depending on what's needed to write the
digester. That will not be a quick, overnight project; I'm guessing at about
two weeks to do the job, given all the other work I have in front of me.

I'll keep you posted as things develop. In the meantime DO NOT MAIL
TO BABA-L! It won't go out and by the time the digester is running,
the note may well be stale. To contact me directly,
mailto:baba-ad@pinefields.com.

I apologize for the inconvenience but there is really little I can do to
control the matter.

Rick




-*- BABA-L - Discussing Babas, Tashibas, and Pandas -*-

Received on Sat Apr 23 07:18:17 2005