In the past week I have received a couple of messages from someone I would
really like to correspond with. However, in this case, it is an America
Online user. But this could apply to other people with other internet
providers. I'm told by computer experts I work with that when you set your
security level really high, or else whatever America Online people do, that
it bounces legitimate messages. Each time I tried to reply to this person,
I got the message that my email was rejected by this AOL user. Nothing in
my email would have caused it to be rejected except her security settings.
My own provider used to filter for me, but I found I could not get various
listserv messages, such as from the American Diabetes Association daily
newsletter, or a local newsletter, Certainly not spam, but the filter at
the internet provider perceives it as such because it comes from a "mass
mailer". Now my internet provider marks messages it perceives as spam, but
lets them come through. You would be surprised at what is marked "spam" and
what should be that is not. Personal messages from friends that are
innocent - a message with a picture of a newborn came to me this morning
marked as "spam". I receive a horrendous amount of spam, but to change my
settings and filter out anything labeled by my internet provider as spam
would mean I would lose a lot of legitimate messages. I have my own filters
set up, but must still review 100-200 messages daily because even my own
personal filter for unknown reasons kicks out some legit messages into my
deleted items folder, and I have to pull them back into my inbox. I wind up
reading some really nasty subject lines because I have to look at EVERY
message. So in case you do not realize some of these problems, or wonder
why you do not hear back from some people, this might explain it. The
genealogist who contacted me gave so little info that I have no idea from
what listserv or genealogy forum she was replying to me.