3 ms·

I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or rece

I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or receiving mail. I suspect anyone who properly configures their server will be fine.

michaelt 5y ago
The problem is delivery problems are almost undetectable. If I send an email to a corporation’s customer support, or to a distant relation, or to an open source mailing list, and I don’t get a reply, it could be a delivery problem - or it could just be that they didn’t decide to reply.
- dqv 5y ago
  For corporate support, that’s totally on them. Checking the spam folder is customer support. The “oh sorry your email went to spam!” is one of the few times I express dissatisfaction to a company. It’s not my responsibility to make sure my email doesn’t go to their spam folder. Not when I’ve taken all the right steps to make sure my emails are not marked as spam. If you have customers, you have to check your spam folder! It’s not foolproof.
  - kiwijamo 5y ago
    You seem to not realize many email providers just drop emails (often after accepting it) instead of putting it in spam folders. So even your suggestion is of no help in that situation.
the_angry_angel 5y ago
> I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or receiving mail. I suspect anyone who properly configures their server will be fine. At work I ran email servers professionally and with good deliverability for years. My own email server was arguably longer lived than those at work, just much lower volumes. IP block was clean, DKIM, SPF, rDNS, etc. all setup correctly. I thought I had no deliverability issues. I interacted with mailing lists regularly, the odd email to friends and family and I was firmly in your camp until I had to deal with a death in the family. I think this was shortly after Microsoft BPOS became Office365. It became very very clear very very rapidly that to certain orgs I just wasn't hitting the inbox. And there was jack shit I could do about it. That was the end of my mail server, and it's certainly got worse over time.

michaelt 5y ago

The problem is delivery problems are almost undetectable. If I send an email to a corporation’s customer support, or to a distant relation, or to an open source mailing list, and I don’t get a reply, it could be a delivery problem - or it could just be that they didn’t decide to reply.

dqv 5y ago
For corporate support, that’s totally on them. Checking the spam folder is customer support. The “oh sorry your email went to spam!” is one of the few times I express dissatisfaction to a company. It’s not my responsibility to make sure my email doesn’t go to their spam folder. Not when I’ve taken all the right steps to make sure my emails are not marked as spam. If you have customers, you have to check your spam folder! It’s not foolproof.
- kiwijamo 5y ago
  You seem to not realize many email providers just drop emails (often after accepting it) instead of putting it in spam folders. So even your suggestion is of no help in that situation.

the_angry_angel 5y ago

> I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or receiving mail. I suspect anyone who properly configures their server will be fine. At work I ran email servers professionally and with good deliverability for years. My own email server was arguably longer lived than those at work, just much lower volumes. IP block was clean, DKIM, SPF, rDNS, etc. all setup correctly. I thought I had no deliverability issues. I interacted with mailing lists regularly, the odd email to friends and family and I was firmly in your camp until I had to deal with a death in the family. I think this was shortly after Microsoft BPOS became Office365. It became very very clear very very rapidly that to certain orgs I just wasn't hitting the inbox. And there was jack shit I could do about it. That was the end of my mail server, and it's certainly got worse over time.