4 ms·

Show HN: Personal messaging with a 2-7 day delay

8 points by frits1993 6y ago

frits1993 6y ago
Instant messaging has become the standard. The messages I send my good friends have become shorter, and are often based on my expectations of their reply. With TardaMail, I wanted to recreate the letter-writing experience, digitally. Taking more time to write someone without expecting an instant reply can be very valuable, especially in these times of isolation.
gus_massa 6y ago
How do you prevent spam? You should at least verify the address of the sender. A favicon would be nice. (I'm using Chrome.)
- frits1993 6y ago
  Good point, I will push an update with email verification and a favicon in the next hour.
  - frits1993 6y ago
    Done!
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      You are sending a confirmation link to the receiver, but I expected that the sender must confirm the address.
      - frits1993 6y ago
        I double checked, and the confirmation links are sent to the sender as you would expect. Please check again and make sure you use the correct fields. If it happens more often, I'll consider swapping the fields, even though this order seems to make most sense looking at several email clients.
        gus_massa 6y ago
        You are right. I expected the other order and I didn't read the text. (There are only like only 10 words in the page, and I didn't read them :)!) I just looked at GMail, and it uses From/To/Subject . You don't have subject! --- Also the page does not understand: "Joe Doe"<jdoe@example.com> but I don't think it's 100% necessary, don't rush to implement it.
        gus_massa 6y ago
        It finally arrived! :)
LinuxBender 6y ago
Sortof related: I just wanted to add that many MTA's email servers also support this concept. Using milters or scripts, you can default emails to be stored in the hold queue, then release them based on ingestion time.
- frits1993 6y ago
  Cool, I did not know that. Are there any other thinkable use cases of keeping messages in a hold queue for a longer period of time, for this option to exist?
  - LinuxBender 6y ago
    Some sysadmins/postmasters do this to protect against spam floods. They use cron jobs to hold/release emails after validating the envelope contents using tools like MailScanner. Some use that for intercepting test messages [1] I don't have the links handy, but I have also seen some projects in github that utilize hold queues for managing more granular rate limits based on content rather than destination. Some anti-spam tools will also quarantine messages into the hold queue for review. [1] - https://serverfault.com/questions/219173/configure-postfix-to-filter-email-into-hold-queue https://serverfault.com/questions/219173/configure-postfix-t...
kirktrue 6y ago
Interesting concept. I tried it out and got the 'We've sent an email to foo@example.com with a confirmation link.' message. It's been about 5 minutes and I still haven't received the confirmation message. You might want to turn some knobs so that the confirmation emails go through sooner. Or are the confirmation emails similarly intentionally delayed? :)
- frits1993 6y ago
  Haha no the confirmation mails are sent straight away ;) "tardamail.com is too new, temporarily blacklisted" is what I see in the mail-logs. Seems like something I can't do much about at the moment, and should correct itself in a while. It seems to get past most spam-filters though. I'll consider implementing an email-confirmation backup, thanks!
  - blisseyGo 6y ago
    You might find this useful: https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/ip-blacklist-removal https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/ip-blacklist-removal Especially the part about "Rule of Thumb for Running Mail Server on a New IP Address When you run a mail server on a new IP address, you should not use this IP address to send newsletters (aka marketing emails) right away. Instead, you should use this IP address to send transactional emails for a period of time to improve the reputation. You may also want to use SMTP relay to send emails for a few days because SMTP relay services have a high IP reputation. After that, send emails directly to the familiar recipients."
kirktrue 6y ago
I'm loath to mention this, but although I assume the use of "tard" in the name is to signify delay, some might be sensitive to that term.
- mpfundstein 6y ago
  some people are always offended. no matter what. i think its a funny wordplay. but seriously. if OP wants to already prevent sjw outcry: change the name

8 points by frits1993 6y ago

frits1993 6y ago

Instant messaging has become the standard. The messages I send my good friends have become shorter, and are often based on my expectations of their reply. With TardaMail, I wanted to recreate the letter-writing experience, digitally. Taking more time to write someone without expecting an instant reply can be very valuable, especially in these times of isolation.

gus_massa 6y ago

How do you prevent spam? You should at least verify the address of the sender. A favicon would be nice. (I'm using Chrome.)

frits1993 6y ago
Good point, I will push an update with email verification and a favicon in the next hour.
- frits1993 6y ago
  Done!
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    You are sending a confirmation link to the receiver, but I expected that the sender must confirm the address.
    - frits1993 6y ago
      I double checked, and the confirmation links are sent to the sender as you would expect. Please check again and make sure you use the correct fields. If it happens more often, I'll consider swapping the fields, even though this order seems to make most sense looking at several email clients.
      - gus_massa 6y ago
        You are right. I expected the other order and I didn't read the text. (There are only like only 10 words in the page, and I didn't read them :)!) I just looked at GMail, and it uses From/To/Subject . You don't have subject! --- Also the page does not understand: "Joe Doe"<jdoe@example.com> but I don't think it's 100% necessary, don't rush to implement it.
        gus_massa 6y ago
        It finally arrived! :)

LinuxBender 6y ago

Sortof related: I just wanted to add that many MTA's email servers also support this concept. Using milters or scripts, you can default emails to be stored in the hold queue, then release them based on ingestion time.

frits1993 6y ago
Cool, I did not know that. Are there any other thinkable use cases of keeping messages in a hold queue for a longer period of time, for this option to exist?
- LinuxBender 6y ago
  Some sysadmins/postmasters do this to protect against spam floods. They use cron jobs to hold/release emails after validating the envelope contents using tools like MailScanner. Some use that for intercepting test messages [1] I don't have the links handy, but I have also seen some projects in github that utilize hold queues for managing more granular rate limits based on content rather than destination. Some anti-spam tools will also quarantine messages into the hold queue for review. [1] - https://serverfault.com/questions/219173/configure-postfix-to-filter-email-into-hold-queue https://serverfault.com/questions/219173/configure-postfix-t...

kirktrue 6y ago

Interesting concept. I tried it out and got the 'We've sent an email to foo@example.com with a confirmation link.' message. It's been about 5 minutes and I still haven't received the confirmation message. You might want to turn some knobs so that the confirmation emails go through sooner. Or are the confirmation emails similarly intentionally delayed? :)

frits1993 6y ago
Haha no the confirmation mails are sent straight away ;) "tardamail.com is too new, temporarily blacklisted" is what I see in the mail-logs. Seems like something I can't do much about at the moment, and should correct itself in a while. It seems to get past most spam-filters though. I'll consider implementing an email-confirmation backup, thanks!
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  You might find this useful: https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/ip-blacklist-removal https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/ip-blacklist-removal Especially the part about "Rule of Thumb for Running Mail Server on a New IP Address When you run a mail server on a new IP address, you should not use this IP address to send newsletters (aka marketing emails) right away. Instead, you should use this IP address to send transactional emails for a period of time to improve the reputation. You may also want to use SMTP relay to send emails for a few days because SMTP relay services have a high IP reputation. After that, send emails directly to the familiar recipients."

kirktrue 6y ago

I'm loath to mention this, but although I assume the use of "tard" in the name is to signify delay, some might be sensitive to that term.

mpfundstein 6y ago
some people are always offended. no matter what. i think its a funny wordplay. but seriously. if OP wants to already prevent sjw outcry: change the name