Sinister: Why AOL is bad for your health

[honey at xxx.org]

Sinistereenies,

This will be short (for me).  I've spent all day glued to my laptop and
phone, trying to evade the utterly unfounded blocks AOL are putting
on Sinister mail, and my hosting company's over-zealous reaction as
they're terrified of AOL blocking them.  My powers of negotiation
are at an end.  I now have evidence that two AOL users are marking
Sinister mails, and indeed mails from me, as spam, and AOL take them
at their word.  It makes the list drop mails to all of you.  I may
discover who these users are soon.  Blame AOL, and blame those who
are doing it.

To reassure you, I think the list's only dropped one very short mail
because of this since I last spoke to you.  I don't want there to be
any more.

Having spent two whole days doing this, with numerous calls to the
US, it's clearly not any way to spend a life, so I've mailed then
removed all AOL users from the list other than those who replied to
an email I sent to them yesterday (thank you).  You can resubscribe
if you like, but I advise *all* AOL users to move to a new ISP now,
or subscribe to Sinister via a webmail site.  Those left on AOL will
be missing mails probably.  You might not even get this.

Many lists have had to ban AOL users because of the way AOL operate
their spam filters - rather than scanning content, they simply
believe their own users who say they got spam.  This opens the way
to abuse, or mails being marked as spam by AOL users who don't know
what they're doing or are just lazy.  It's extremely likely I'll have
to ban AOL users soon because of this - sorry, but you need to blame
AOL not me.  I'll be too busy blaming my hosting company for their
bullied schoolchild reaction to this.  The list will be moving from
them soon, if I can get well enough to do it.

Please see http://www.missprint.org/sinister/#aol if you want more
of the sordid tale.  I'll post more there but not bore the list with
this if it's just an AOL matter: this list isn't a list about lists,
or about AOL, or about computers - I feel guilty enough sending this.
Just thought you should know.  No stoning of innocent AOL users please.

2:30am.  My doctor will kill me.  Shh.

Sinister, in spite of all this your renaissance is remarkable, and
I love you for it.  You're like a sleepy dragon waking up after
seven years and peeking out of a cave, blowing a snort of smoke
and trotting off to eat some peasants who thought you were dead.
Continue to munch, please.

End of boring mails from a very tired list mum.  Please resume blowing
up balloons for Saturday and have a lovely time.

Honey

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