a catch-22

[iswallowedabug (deleted)]

feedback wrote: If you are sending messages to people who know you, then ask them to put you on their 'Favorites/Friends' list.

When someone adds you to their 'Favorites/Friends' list, it means they trust that you will not spam them, so we do not run any messages to them from you through the spam filter.

(from something that came up in another topic)

The question is, if the spam filters are blocking ALL of someone's emails,
how can they send an email asking to be made a friend or favorite?
If the problem didn't exist, they wouldn't need to ask, but once it
exists, they can't always ask until the problem is solved, in which case
they don't need to ask because there's no problem... (just like
"Orr was crazy and could be grounded...")

Are the spam filters stricter on replies than on normal messages?
There seems to be a problem some of us are having regarding
replies. I have been told that someone "replying" to a message from
me gets that message blocked by the spam filters, but the VERY SAME
MESSAGE sent as a new email gets through. This does not make sense.

Is it possible to set up "spam folders" or some sort of indicator so
someone can choose to read or accept emails that the system
thinks is spam? At least this would allow the request to be added
as a friend to get through on some level.

[feedback]

The spam filters are the same for all messages.

New messages and replies to messages all run through the same system.

We have reviewed the spam system, and if a member claims that a reply to a message was flagged, then it would have to be because they added a comment into the message (and the comment caused a problem).

No one in the system is having ALL their messages flagged / deleted, unless something in their message(s) is causing a problem.

If someone wanted to send a short message to another member saying 'Please add me as a Favorite/Friend', it would go through.

If you choose not to add someone, it is of course, your choice...but by not adding them, you are letting them know that you want their messages to you to continue to count against their daily limit, and that you want their messages to you go go through the spam filter.

This is an effective way to discourage contact from another member, if you decide the 'Block' option is not something you feel the need to use.

Thanks,

[lucifer666 (deleted)]

Here's a suggestion bud, now bear in mind I know very little about Spam filter operations, but can we not have the spam filter an option rather than something enforced upon us ........ So if we want to send new mails to people we can without fear of being blocked but if we also start recieving alot of spam we can then employ the Filter.

[feedback]

Are you asking if we think it makes sense to allow people to decide whether they want their email messages to go through the spam filters?

Actually, that's a good question.

Let's ask...

Excuse me Nigerian Spammers, and Viagra salesmen...would you like your email messages to be filtered through the spam system, or would you like to just go ahead and send whatever you want?

[lucifer666 (deleted)]

Okay smart --- it was just a suggestion

Seriously though .....I am suggesting that we the normal nice posters on here get the choice on whether it is warranted to use a spam filter .......Do you know for sure that it is???

[feedback]

Hehehe...

And all suggestions are considered, before being mocked.

Actually, if you could see what our system blocks, you wouldn't want to even consider a non-spam-filtered system.

The issue is actually very easily addressed by having people list their favorites/friends.

There seem to be a few people on this site that are emailing each other frequently, but for some reason, they don't want to add each other to their 'Friends/Favorites' lists.

Which is odd, because again, that would address 99% of the problems that have been raised here.

We would like to recommend that everyone here read through the 'Helpful Hints' section of the site, where 'Spam' and 'Email Issues' are addressed.

And despite my prior mocking, we do want recommendations on the system (aside from just turning it off).

Thanks,

[lucifer666 (deleted)]

I actually wasn't suggesting that we just turn the whole thing off bud I was just wondering whether we could have individual choice on the matter .....for example if I was sending an email to invisiblesteph there and it wouldn't go through because of the spam filter is it inconcievable to think that I could have a personal off button for the filter that I could then switch it off and maybe get it through......... Oh and thanks for considering my suggesting ...... the mocking just doesn't feel so bad now

Another suggestion is ...... making those who have been posting here for lets just say six months automatically go through your spam filters (the way when you make someone a friend does) it would show a reward and a sign of trust to those posters


Well you did want suggestions!!

[feedback]

Well, we can't really give a member the right to say 'hey, my email should go through, so I"m going to turn off the filter'...because that's what the spammers would do every time.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse here, but based on what we've seen, it is a very safe bet that (almost) everytime this issue has popped up for existing members, it has been when they were sending messages to people they already knew, and who already knew them.

Seriously, why is it that people on this site are not adding one another to their 'Favorites/Friends' lists? Even though they keep emailing one another?

Almost all of the members on this site who have sent messages in to tell us their email was flagged as spam, have been talking about email they were sending to the same people time and again...yet they don't use the simple solution put in place to deal with this issue.

It really is perplexing.

Your other idea is a possibility, although as you can tell, many people use the sites without ever posting in the forums.

We are considering some sort of 'points' system that would be calculated by our system automatically based on a lot of different factors, and once someone reached a certain level, their daily email limit would increase, and the spam filters would come off...until a problem arose, or their 'points' status changed.

We have some other ideas that would involve the thumbs up thumbs down voting option we use in the 'Groups' section...where members would be able to vote whether they had been sent spam or not, each time they receive a message from someone. The votes would determine how strict the filtering system would be.

We have a few other ideas too, but we're not sure which direction we want to go with all this...especially since the existing system is working for most members (especially the ones using the 'Favorites/Friends' lists ).

Our focus this week is to try and finish up the Instant Message system, so that people can begin IM'ing one another.

And next we want to implement the video profile option, that will allow members to record a little 30 second video introduction to add into their profiles. (And we'll probably have a contest of some sort for the funniest Sci Fi related video dating profile).

We're hoping to go live with the IM testing in the next few days.

Thanks,

[invisiblesteph]

u know everyone complaining about spam filters should maybe just stop putting inappropriate language in their messages and get over it...seriously, the site has rules for a reason. Like mr feedback said, if you want to have free reign in the language u use then add each other as favourites.. like thats so hard!

[iswallowedabug (deleted)]

It's not so hard to add someone as a friend or favorite, althought
for the mentally deficient like me it took some figuring out, but
my original point in this thread still stands -- if you don't KNOW
someone is emailing you and being filtered, you don't know to
add them as a friend to allow their emails to get through.

Lucifer666 posted in a forum that he tried to email me but it got filtered.
Since Lucifer666 has never emailed me before, how would I know to
add him as a friend to let his emails through?

Is it possible to have some sort of "friend request" link to click that
would send an automatic email to someone saying "so and so would
like to be added as a friend so they can email you"? Or does that
already exist here and I don't know about it, and others don't, so we
could publicize it?

[feedback]

Your basic idea is a good one, but anyone can already send an email message to you saying 'I'd like to be on your Friends list so I can email you without the spam filter filtering me'.

If Lucifer666 had an email blocked when he tried to contact you for the first time, then there was something in the email that tripped the spam filter.

If a message is caught by the spam filter, the sender could just send a message saying they would like to be added as a friend.

There is nothing preventing him from contacting you via email, unless you have blocked him.

We'll look at whether or not we think we should create a button that would generate a 'Friend Request'...but since anyone can send anyone an email already, we're not sure there is a need.

How hard is it to send an email saying 'Hey, how about adding me as a friend?'

I repeat, there is nothing preventing anyone from contacting anyone... provided they don't have something in their email message that will trip the spam filter.

Thanks,

[lucifer666 (deleted)]

Steph I didn't send iswallowedabug any inappropiate language in a text .....I honestly don't know what was stopping it going through babe

And Mr Feedback I have to say I do have a problem with the system .....me and iswallowedabug have a sort of love/hate thing going on here and quite frankly we were arguing at the time when I had to reply to an email .....now please explain to me how when we are in the middle of insulting one another how I'm mean't to go and say ...."oh by the way can I be your friend ....pretty please" Not all friendships start out nicey nicey you know!!!

[feedback]

The spam filter doesn't flag messages for 'bad language'.

I won't go into what it is watching for, but censureship is not the goal in having messages flow through it before reaching other members.

With regards to your question, there really isn't much more we can do if a member chooses not to add another member into their 'Favorites/Friends' list.

For the most part, it shouldn't be a problem anyway, because despite the protestations on this site, it mostly catches spam related messages.

Even if you aren't on someone's 'Favorites' list, you should be able to send them messages without a problem.

There are email messages flowing back and forth from people throughout our network, every day, without any problem, even when they aren't 'Favorites/Friends' with one another.

Thanks,

[iswallowedabug (deleted)]

feedback wrote: Seriously, why is it that people on this site are not adding one another to their 'Favorites/Friends' lists? Even though they keep emailing one another?

Okay, you did ask, so here are a few ideas/problems with having
public favorite/friends lists:

I tend not to care what other people think, but to be fair, with
some of the userids people have chosen, I can understand how
someone might think twice about listing them as friends.

I mean, this may all be anonymous, and we should all have
a sense of humor, but philosophically, what does it say that I
have now publically listed the userid "Lucifer666" as a friend/favorite?

You'd better keep the filters in place now, because I'm afraid of
the well-meaning theologically minded spam that would come my
way.

But in all seriousness, I don't like having a public display of who your
"friends/favorites" are -- it seems very high school, and I dislike the
idea of "cliques" in general. I wouldn't like the idea of hard feelings
because I've listed two people as friends because I have exchanged
emails with them, but not others because I haven't. Yes, it may be
semantics, it may be adolescent, but I personally dislike the
idea of listing friends because people get left out and it can lead
to hard feelings.

Please note that this post is not meant to criticize but just to try to
give a few answers to the question posed.

[feedback]

This is good feedback.

We did not consider this aspect when adding the 'Favorites/Friends' feature.

Based on your comment, we'll look at adding an option to have the 'Favorites/Friends' list and/or individuals within the list be either public or private, depending on what the member chooses.

Not sure when this will be added, but it seems like a good enhancement to the existing feature.

Thanks for the idea,