Okay,
One of my list subscribers has been trying to communicate with AOL <ha!
GOOD luck!> about AOL's blocking of Rootsweb list mail.
Here's what this list member has reported back to me.
If anyone at NCGenWeb has A CLUE who on earth to send this to at
Rootsweb, please do so. I have no idea who to try to communicate with
anymore, and my previous experiences trying to communicate with AOL have
been nothing short of comical.
In any case, perhaps the following will enable somebody at the Rootsweb
tech level to accomplish something.
-Sandy
Begin forwarded message:
Sandy,
Here is the response I have received from aol regarding the blocking of
Listserve mail. There are some steps that Rootsweb can take to help
resolve this problem, if I understand correctly what is being said
below. There is
also a series of 9 questions aol is asking me to answer, but I am not
completely sure I know what the answers are (being a computer user, but
not a
computer geek, my understanding of "ordinary" computer jargon is
weak). I'm not even
sure who to communicate with at RootsWeb.
Here follows the aol response:
Thanks for writing to America Online and for making us aware of your
concern.
I am Byron and I will be working with you regarding your email.
I understand from your recent e-mail that you suspect AOL has blocked
your
e-mail from reaching your AOL account.
Thank you for bringing this problem to our attention and I apologize
for the
inconvenience this has caused.
AOL has developed Solicited Bulk Mailing Guidelines to both aid
'netizens'
with their online marketing campaigns and to protect our member base
from e-mail
abuse.
AOL may have received large amounts of "junk" or "spam" e-mail from
someone
on this domain name. The addresses of domains that send this type of
e-mail to
AOL members are added to the Preferred Mail, Blocked List. Because the
Preferred Mail, Blocked Sites list is not updated daily to remove
domains from the
list, it does not immediately display these sites when added.
This is the reason why we also have the 554 series of Mailer Daemon
error
messages, which explain that the server is generating high volumes of
member
complaints from AOL. If you have receive such error messages, you or
your e-mail
provider may need to review our Unsolicited Bulk E-mail policy at
http://www.aol.com/info/bulke-mail.html and until such issues are
resolved, AOL may not
accept further e-mail transactions from the given server or domain.
America Online has a process that goes through our database of open
proxies
and tests them every 24 hours. If we find that our attempts to use your
open
ports are unsuccessful, we will change the status of your server from
open to
closed. We will then remove your IP from our block list and push the
changes
into production. These processes are automated, and "unblocks"
generally occur in
about 24 hours.
If you believe your organization's e-mail provider can adhere to AOL
guidelines provided at this site:
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/index.html, please
ask your e-mail provider to call our Postmaster Hotline at 703-265-4670
or
1-888-212-5537 and the Postmaster group will evaluate your mailing
patterns and
resolve any outstanding issues with your server or domain.
If you would like to test your e-mail server against our database,
enter the
IP address on the site below:
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/opse.html
Also, please take time to answer the following questions below and send
your
reply back to us. In that way we can investigate this issue and file a
report
on your behalf.
1. Webmaster's Name:
2. ISP's Domain Name:
3. When Problem Started:
4. E-mail Address:
5. Problem Is:
6. Daytime Phone:
7. Getting Bounce from AOL's mailer-daemon?:
8. Host name of mail server used to relay mail to AOL:
9. IP Address of mail server used to relay mail to AOL:
Again, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
I hope that I have sufficiently provided you with useful information
about
your inquiry. Should you have further questions or concerns, feel free
to write
back.