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> I've heard no few times how hard it is to send mail from a self-hosted server (because of spam filters). This is the second sentence. What does this even mea

> I've heard no few times how hard it is to send mail from a self-hosted server (because of spam filters). This is the second sentence. What does this even mean?

vonwoodson 5y ago
It means that if you send email that isn’t from a gmail.com account, Google flags it as spam. (Alternatively if you send spam from a gmail account, it’s called “marketing” and Google will prioritize it for a small fee.)
- nojs 5y ago
  > Google will prioritize it for a small fee What do you mean by this?
  - throwaway892238 5y ago
    Pay for Workspace, your spam won't be flagged as spam (by Google) and you get raised sending limits. Limits are based on licenses, so the more you pay Google, the more you can spam, with a max of 4.6M unique addresses per 24H. If you send spam through Google, they will send your administrator an e-mail telling them that they are sending spam. If you send "a large volume" of this spam, they will stop relaying it until you promise not to send spam (or follow their guide to make your spam not look like spam).
    - andris9 5y ago
      The email user sending spam will get automatically suspended. The account admin can then un-suspend it though. From the TOS it seems to be an option for Google to permanently suspend such an email user. Not sure when that would happen though.
HillRat 5y ago
“Cold” IPs have lower trust scores, are more likely to end up on a blacklist, and are harder to get off blacklists, plus good luck finding a colo that will let you send bulk email in the first place. You can get away with sending low-volume programmatic, but that’s about it.
- klabb3 5y ago
  So where do spammers send email from, since they clearly make it to my Gmail spam folder - sometimes even inbox? More generally: How does this weird trust system work? Is it just an inofficial, loosely connected club of large actors who trust each other enough to whitelist?
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Depends on how you define spam. Services like Mailchimp will send mail that you and I may consider spam, but it gets delivered, because they have teams of people making sure they are following all the rules to the letter and they probably negotiated agreements with Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc to whitelist their servers.
    - klabb3 5y ago
      Thanks for the reply. What rules?
      - mfincham 5y ago
        It's basically like you described - an informally specified set of rules the various "big players" in e-mail enforce. There's some consensus about the things you "have" to do to participate in e-mail but it's generally not a black and white "do these things and you'll be fine" situation.
      - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
        As an example, mailing lists are likely to have a header like "list-unsubscribe: <mailto:list@host.com?subject=unsubscribe>", which enables email clients like offer easy unsubscribe buttons.
brightly-salty 5y ago
It’s an odd construction but replacing “no few” with “not a few” (i.e. many) makes a lot more sense.
- patmorgan23 5y ago
  Yeah it's just a clunky phrase. Saying "many" or "more than a few" is much clearer and easier to parse. "No few" is like ok do you mean one to none or many?

> I've heard no few times how hard it is to send mail from a self-hosted server (because of spam filters). This is the second sentence. What does this even mean?

vonwoodson 5y ago

It means that if you send email that isn’t from a gmail.com account, Google flags it as spam. (Alternatively if you send spam from a gmail account, it’s called “marketing” and Google will prioritize it for a small fee.)

nojs 5y ago
> Google will prioritize it for a small fee What do you mean by this?
- throwaway892238 5y ago
  Pay for Workspace, your spam won't be flagged as spam (by Google) and you get raised sending limits. Limits are based on licenses, so the more you pay Google, the more you can spam, with a max of 4.6M unique addresses per 24H. If you send spam through Google, they will send your administrator an e-mail telling them that they are sending spam. If you send "a large volume" of this spam, they will stop relaying it until you promise not to send spam (or follow their guide to make your spam not look like spam).
  - andris9 5y ago
    The email user sending spam will get automatically suspended. The account admin can then un-suspend it though. From the TOS it seems to be an option for Google to permanently suspend such an email user. Not sure when that would happen though.

HillRat 5y ago

“Cold” IPs have lower trust scores, are more likely to end up on a blacklist, and are harder to get off blacklists, plus good luck finding a colo that will let you send bulk email in the first place. You can get away with sending low-volume programmatic, but that’s about it.

klabb3 5y ago
So where do spammers send email from, since they clearly make it to my Gmail spam folder - sometimes even inbox? More generally: How does this weird trust system work? Is it just an inofficial, loosely connected club of large actors who trust each other enough to whitelist?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Depends on how you define spam. Services like Mailchimp will send mail that you and I may consider spam, but it gets delivered, because they have teams of people making sure they are following all the rules to the letter and they probably negotiated agreements with Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc to whitelist their servers.
  - klabb3 5y ago
    Thanks for the reply. What rules?
    - mfincham 5y ago
      It's basically like you described - an informally specified set of rules the various "big players" in e-mail enforce. There's some consensus about the things you "have" to do to participate in e-mail but it's generally not a black and white "do these things and you'll be fine" situation.
    - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
      As an example, mailing lists are likely to have a header like "list-unsubscribe: <mailto:list@host.com?subject=unsubscribe>", which enables email clients like offer easy unsubscribe buttons.

brightly-salty 5y ago

It’s an odd construction but replacing “no few” with “not a few” (i.e. many) makes a lot more sense.

patmorgan23 5y ago
Yeah it's just a clunky phrase. Saying "many" or "more than a few" is much clearer and easier to parse. "No few" is like ok do you mean one to none or many?