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Google seems to have broken email forwarding

jwz.org

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Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#81

Post by zamalek »

cssmoo wrote: post #15
jmount wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already downvoted below zero (about 2 seconds). I'll stand by what I said/implied: it is hard to co-exist with Google systems (and apparently also with pro-Google shills/apologists). I know this post violates HN standards, but I didn't think the parent did.

I think its just that everyone who doesn't run a mail server hasn't had to deal with this shit so finds it hard to believe that their precious email providers are being a pain in the butt. That is until you get a court summons after an invoice was sent several times and never got there because some fuckwit mail policy just blackholed it. This stuff does happen and when it does its costly.

I think there needs to be a more substantial karma gate to downvoting (10 000+), I'd be fine with falling out of that category myself. I've only been interacting on HN for the past year or so, but lurked for several years prior: the community has been becoming a lot more "redditish."

I nearly always agree or can be convinced by the higher karma users, but the fresh users seem to be defaulting to reddit-level arguments (uneducated, immutable beliefs, hyperbole, taking things personally, no objectivity). I.e.

> just that everyone who doesn't run a mail server hasn't had to deal with this shit

"Everyone" in that sentence should not have the right to be downvoting in the first place.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#82

Post by rottingchris »

Touche wrote: post #57

I honestly can't figure out what he's attempting to do here. It sounds like he doesn't want to force a work email account on his employees. I don't think many people would have a problem with a work email, it's the norm after all, but fine. But he also doesn't want to add their personal email addresses to his address book (is this why he wants the @dnalounge.com addresses?) I'm not sure what this setup is attempting…

He does create a work email account for his employees. He doesn't want to force them to use a separate email client so he allows his employees to set up forwarding from his server to their personal gmail account. They can use his smtp server from gmail for sending stuff out so they get to use both their personal and work email from the same interface.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#83

Post by reuven »

I have been running my own SMTP server for about 25 years. I finally decided, in the last month or so, that it just wasn't worth the effort involved in handling spam and anti-spam stuff -- not only from Google, but from other providers who are so worried about spam that they falsely tag all sorts of stuff as spam. I found that accurate configuration and maintenance, including of SPF and DKIM, wasn't worth my time and effort.

And so, I have now moved my e-mail to Rackspace. I had to use their chat-based support several times while migrating my e-mail to the new server, and it was truly fantastic. On that point alone, I feel fortunate.

The $20/month I'm paying Rackspace is a pittance compared to the time and effort I was spending trying to keep my old SMTP/IMAP servers secure, as well as the false-spam tagging that happened all-too-often.

It sounds like jwz wants to have his cake and eat it too, and I sympathize. But I'm not sure that it's possible any more to spend a non-trivial amount of time configuring e-mail servers, tinkering with them such that they'll work with big companies (and especially Google). The Internet is no longer the simple, fun playground that we old-timers remember, and that effectively means giving control over some services to people who are paid full-time salaries to take care of these inter-connectivity issues.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#84

Post by rev_bird »

Naga wrote: post #75
myko wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was being recruited by Google I was frustrated by having great phone calls with recruiters, doing well in my phone interview and never hearing a followup. Turned out all the emails from @google.com were going into my Gmail spam. I think they still do (no matter how many I've marked as not spam). Oops.

I've been waiting for an email from a company that I'm in the recruitment process with and your comment inspired me to check my spam folder. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have seen an email from a government agency looking to recruit me. So thanks!

You'd think .gov, of all TLDs, would have a lower spam score.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#85

Post by rottingchris »

blfr wrote: post #72
karlshea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misunderstanding what is happening. He is not using Gmail, his employees are.

Those are Gmail accounts belonging to his employees but he is using them in the back of his mail setup instead of hosting @dnalounge.com inboxes himself (or paying Google to).

He doesn't use them. His employees chose to forward their email because they want to use the same interface for both their work and personal email. He does host @dnalounge.com inboxes.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#86

Post by rev_bird »

ibz wrote: post #42
jimrandomh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, gmail classifies nearly all of the transactional email I get from Amazon (order acknowledgements, shipping notifications, etc) as spam, and no matter how many I catch and un-mark, it won't stop. Spam classification is a hard problem, but I don't think they've put the false-positive/false-negative tradeoff in the right place, and they really need some safety valves like offering to whitelist an addres…

I always mark Amazon mail as spam. Could it be that if a lot of people mark a certain kind of email as spam, Google just treats it as spam?

If so, it seems like an uncharacteristically clunky way of doing it -- sure, clickthrough rate has a some effect on PageRank, for example, but there's a ton of content-based filtering going on too. I don't really want my spam folder full of false-positives because folks don't want to unsubscribe from things.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#87

Post by unreal37 »

Touche wrote: post #57

I honestly can't figure out what he's attempting to do here. It sounds like he doesn't want to force a work email account on his employees. I don't think many people would have a problem with a work email, it's the norm after all, but fine. But he also doesn't want to add their personal email addresses to his address book (is this why he wants the @dnalounge.com addresses?) I'm not sure what this setup is attempting…

He wants to enforce a @dnalounge.com for all internal emails rule, but have the underlying tech be more flexible.

Actually, makes sense, because he can then save those emails on the server, back them up, and they'll be in his control if an employee ever leaves. It's good corporate policy. I believe the White House is having a similar conversation lately.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#88

Post by ccozan »

ibz wrote: post #42
jimrandomh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, gmail classifies nearly all of the transactional email I get from Amazon (order acknowledgements, shipping notifications, etc) as spam, and no matter how many I catch and un-mark, it won't stop. Spam classification is a hard problem, but I don't think they've put the false-positive/false-negative tradeoff in the right place, and they really need some safety valves like offering to whitelist an addres…

I always mark Amazon mail as spam. Could it be that if a lot of people mark a certain kind of email as spam, Google just treats it as spam?

I would not recommend this. Amazon emails can be unsubscribed. And they are not really spam, they are not coming unsolicited, aren't they?

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#89

Post by rev_bird »

tls wrote: post #73

1: email is hosted offsite, yet reliant on Google/Gmail to do in house work/intermail. 2: when you are reliant on an external source to solve a problem within your own house you are not prepared. 3: solution: reduce reliance or point of failure by either bringing it all in house and forwarding the remains or bring root to the source and source from root and use mask and forwarding.

I'm confused -- are you saying doing your own email hosting is the way to avoid getting stung by Gmail spam filters? Seems like an "out of the pot and into the fire" kind of situation.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#90

Post by wampus »

rybosome wrote: post #28
jmount wrote: post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

This seems more like a bug than something intentional. What I find more interesting (and am somewhat saddened by) is that a bug such as this causes people to leap to the conclusion that it is part of a malicious, anti-competitive plot.

It sounds more like a side effect than a bug. Both domains have conflicting policies. He wants any Gmail user to be able to impersonate a sender from his domain, but not in a way Gmail supports.
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