Fone Forum

Wecome & Introduction to Fone Forum => Forum announcements => Topic started by: TheAdminTeam on May 11, 2018, 10:18:25 PM



Title: Text now omitted from notification messages
Post by: TheAdminTeam on May 11, 2018, 10:18:25 PM

Over the past fortnight or so a great number of new members have registered here.  This is to be warmly welcomed, in general.

However many of these members have abused the open nature of our forum, and have immediately posted spam.    ???

This has not only been a burden to Moderators and Admin, who have had to report or delete such posts, but it has had some unforeseen, and possibly unintended, consequences to others also.

I myself have had 2 email addresses blocked in the last 3 days, due to alleged 'unusual activity' in my accounts, which have been interpreted as my using them to spam others.    >:(

I have no reason to believe that I will be the only member to have suffered in this way.

As far as I can surmise, some email providers (such as GMX, Outlook, and probably some others), have taken exception to seeing spam sent out via automated forum notifications.

As I do not wish to take away all notifications from members, some of whom I know value and rely on them, I have sought to find the next best thing to safeguard members' email accounts from getting similarly blocked for 'unusual activities'.

To this end I have removed the facility to send out text within notification messages.

An early test of this indicates that this change is working for new posts.

Please message me if you find that this does not work as I have indicated above.

Thank you.

Admin.



Title: Re: Text now omitted from notification messages
Post by: TheAdminTeam on May 15, 2018, 10:45:15 PM

I can now say, after further testing, that nearly all notification emails are not reaching Gmail accounts.   :'(

Also even those, routed via Outlook or Yahoo accounts, are placed in the spam folder by Gmail.   >:(

So whilst good progress was made yesterday on other fronts, we still have some big problems with our notification messages.   :'(

My advice to Gmail users, therefore, remains to open accounts elsewhere.   ;)

Surprisingly, there are differences between Microsoft accounts, because Hotmail are forwarding messages well, but those from Outlook are now delivered as spam.

This is weird!   ???

Admin.



Title: Re: Text now omitted from notification messages
Post by: TheAdminTeam on May 16, 2018, 02:32:19 PM

Following from further testing, I have made a little progress in ascertaining how to get notification emails to a Gmail account.    :o

Although you can set up POP3 collection in a Gmail account, messages obtained this way are now placed in the Gmail spam folder alas.    ???

However, if the email is FORWARDED by the collecting site (such as Hotmail or Yahoo), it is delivered promptly and safely into the Gmail inbox.    ;D
(I should, perhaps, say usually!)

I have only some speculations about why there is such a difference, but it is best not to share them, as I don't want to say anything that some could use to cause harm.   :-X

It seems that not all email providers allow automatic email forwarding.
For instance GMX email don't seem to cater for this, other than through their iOS app.
However the majority of major email providers do, including Hotmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.
You will probably have to search for the appropriate method of setting this up for your own email provider, as it varies widely.   ;)

If any Gmail users have found some other method to get their notification messages delivered to their account, please message me about how you do this.   ;)

Thank you.



Title: Re: Text now omitted from notification messages
Post by: TheAdminTeam on May 21, 2018, 10:17:51 AM

I think it is time to update the information on this thread.

Our webmaster did some work on our forum last week, which has helped us greatly with the spam plague we were suffering.
This is dealt with on another thread here (http://www.foneforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,3239.0.html), which I shall also be updating soon.
However he also made some helpful suggestions about how to deal with the email delivery problem.    :)

Mikael was able to make some changes on a DNS look-up server on Friday, and having made some tests last evening, I can report that Gmail notification emails are now arriving in Gmail again.   :D

I sent 4 test PMs to accounts with registered Gmail accounts, and all emails arrived in them within one minute.
However it is only fair to say that only 2 were delivered to the Inbox, whereas the other 2 were placed in the Spam folder.    ;)

This means that members can continue, or switch back, to using Gmail - if they wish - although it will be wise to check your Spam folders regularly if you do.    ;)

If members have switched their registered email account to another provider, and they are happy to stay there, there is nothing that they need do.
However for those who prefer to have Gmail as their main account, they can now switch back to it if they chose.    ;)

If any fresh problems arise please let me know via PM.    ;)

Thank you.



Title: Re: Text now omitted from notification messages
Post by: ShadowKhan on May 25, 2018, 05:36:09 AM
Be assured that this information is good for those who are interested in this.