Author Topic: Conquering Spam Filters  (Read 5883 times)

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KMC

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Conquering Spam Filters
« on: Feb 26, 2009, 10:47 pm »
This is a topic that came up in another thread.  Since email is a tool we use every day I thought this would be a good place for it.

The issue that came up in the Employment forum on the thread "When Hiring Other SMs".  The problem some folks seem to be having is important email getting caught in spam filters.  Has anyone else experienced this?  If so, which email providers did you experience this with and how did you resolve the situation?
« Last Edit: Feb 26, 2009, 10:49 pm by kmc307 »
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Amie

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #1 on: Feb 26, 2009, 11:30 pm »
For me:
Yahoo suddenly starting blocking certain formatted student email accounts.  The emails were not added to my "block list" or in my spam folder.  It was entirely a mystery!

When things HAVE gone into my spam folder and I've noticed, in gmail and yahoo, I believe, you can mark the message "not spam" or something similar.  Make sure, when things have gone into the spam folder too, to remove any email address automatically added to a block email list by the email provider.

I find with gmail, simply moving things back to inbox will do it. Important emails get caught there sometimes... sometimes, these "convenient features" of technology aren't so convenient....

I don't know how to combat the Spam Folder any better really.
~ Amie ~

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ericjames

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #2 on: Feb 26, 2009, 11:31 pm »
I was just reading through the "When Hiring SM's" thread and followed the thread here.  

I was interested to hear that people are having problems with yahoo.  I have used it for years now as my primary email and I have yet to have a problem with it.   Of course that have been occasional important emails the end up in my spam box, but nothing that I didn't catch before I emptied the folder.   I just always read through the the subject lines before I delete them to see if anything looks important.  Of course, maybe I am just lucky and don't get as much spam as some other people.

At any rate...  any addresses in your address book should bypass spam checkers completely and go straight to your inbox. (I know yahoo & hotmail work that way.  I suspect most other email servers do the same)  That is the simplest work around that I know.

BLee

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #3 on: Feb 27, 2009, 01:24 am »
I know I had a huge problem when I was internship seeking last summer. My school e-mail, which is hosted by Windows Live, doesn't even filter out e-mails from companies, but flat out doesn't allow us to get them. It simply blocked any email from some company e-mails. I was in the dark for a couple of months before I was checking in with some of the companies I applied to and one told me that my e-mail had kicked back as unreceived. Not good for business.

I have had similar problems with hotmail and stopped using Yahoo due to the unnecessary amount of spam that gets sent to those addresses. I now use my gmail account for all professional business (which I have yet to have issue with) and my me.com (mac) account for important technical accounts and orders and such.
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KMC

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #4 on: Feb 27, 2009, 08:41 am »
I now use my gmail account for all professional business (which I have yet to have issue with) and my me.com (mac) account for important technical accounts and orders and such.

I haven't had issues yet with gmail either.  I had a .com a few years ago and stupidly posted my email address for the world (aka spambots)   to see.  I get about 150 spam a day and haven't had an email get caught, at least not that I know of.  I do a quick scan of my spam to see if there's anything outside of the "3oMG p|LLS ch3ap!" type emails, but nothing important has been caught yet!
Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. -T. Roosevelt

Amie

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #5 on: Feb 27, 2009, 10:16 am »
Gmail is my numero uno choice right now, too.  I still keep my yahoo account active, as it's nice to have 2 accounts I check daily. Many of my previous employers know this account and it still has a lot of documents from old shows in it.  Gmail has not added a Folders feature that wasn't there before.  So we can label, star, and put things in folders (or what appears to be folders....maybe more advanced labeling? I don't know. But it works quite nicely).  I am a happy little stage management camper with that!

I think my issue with Yahoo is that it automatically deleted my spam. I think I set it up to do this, though.  I am with kmc, though. I scan my spam box to see if there is anything aside from the usual random spam messages, and so far, have yet to find important email filtered there.
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cprted

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #6 on: Feb 27, 2009, 12:01 pm »
I use email provided by my ISP.  The ISP provides pretty solid spam filtering along with some filters built into MS Entourage (Outlook for Mac).  It works pretty well.  Usually once every two months or so a spam message will make it to my inbox and about the same frequency for a real email ending up in spam box.  All in all, I'm very happy with the reliability. 

J

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #7 on: Feb 27, 2009, 01:53 pm »
I had major problems with Yahoo, but I too had signed up with a .com from them and was getting over 300 spam emails a day.  After switching to Gmail and getting rid of my .com, I set up a second email account, that I called Spam.  I use this account (with a username very similar to my actual one) to sign up for things online that I need to provide an email address for. If this account ever gets out of control, I can delete the account without worrying about people not being able to contact me.

In regards to the fact that as long as the email is in your address book all is well, true.  But this conversation originated from a discussion about job offers being sent by employers to freelancers.  In this case, many times their email address is not in your address book.  For someone who is constantly working freelance, or working with different designers, directors, actors, etc. , this can be difficult to do. 

My best advice to those dealing with spam- make sure that on resumes you have a telephone and email address.  Remove the bad email account completely (don't just stop checking it, actually delete it) and set up 2 accounts (Gmail is my preference).  1 account for your actual mail, and 1 account to use when signing up for things online.  Do NOT let your email address get published anywhere online whatsoever. Do NOT list it on a website.  If you must have email on your website, use a dummy email address and then forward those to your actual email.  This way you can change it often, but DO NOT let your primary email get out there to the public.

That's my two cents.  This comes from months/years of being absolutely furious about the amount of spam I was getting and the amount of legitimate emails I was losing on a daily basis.


Tempest

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #8 on: Feb 28, 2009, 01:55 pm »
I don't have any strategies for keeping important e-mails out of my spam boxes, or avoiding spam, myself.  But I do have something I do to make important show e-mails I send easier for the recipients to see.
The subject of every e-mail I send starts with the show name in capital letters.  Hence the subject would be sometyhing like:
SANTALAND DIARIES: 12-23 show notes

or

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF: Fitting schedule

Nice and easy to spot if, by chance, it ends up in someone's spam folder.
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jempage

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #9 on: Mar 01, 2009, 03:48 am »
For those who are taking the multiple email accounts approach with gMail,
the service offers a really great method for checking multiple accounts, even those NOT on gmail's servers.

Settings -> Accounts will allow you to add additional addresses to your main inbox.
You can even add custom labels to each account for quick and dirty filtering.
Cheers,
Jem.
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Amie

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Re: Conquering Spam Filters
« Reply #10 on: Mar 01, 2009, 10:15 pm »
jempage, yahoo tried something like this and I didn't like its format. Gmail might be better though. Thank you for sharing. I will certainly try this.
~ Amie ~

“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”

 

riotous