*** Please get rid of Hotmail from your profiles ***

[Neil]

My inbox is yet again a complete mess thanks largely to Hotmail, its completely overrun with dozens and dozens of bumped Hotmail notifications .  If you're using Hotmail, please get rid of it so I don't have to delete all the bumped posts.  People keep signing up with it, too, and then NEVER get their activation mails.  So I think, right, well I'll try and forward them on to these people one by one, but that never works either as their hotmail has invaraibly expired, is full, or is just being shit.

I can't seem to find any way of banning hotmail addies, so far - so please do me a favour and rid your profile of hotmail.  If you need an alternate addy, I can give you a gmail invite - just let me know.

If you have a hotmail addy in your profile YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF IT.  Thanks.

[glitch]

To prevent people from registering with Hotmail accounts, you have to set up a ban for them - and unfortunately this will ban anyone that doesn't change their email addresses (although you could always change them yourself to a null value and then setup the ban).

*@hotmail.* as the ban trigger should completely block hotmail in all it's flavours.

[weekender]

Heh, you can't ban me that easily, I NOTICED THIS THREAD!

Should this be a sticky in each forum?  Could you do a mass PM/email/announcement or something?  I wouldn't have thought everyone reads General Bullshit, that's all.

_{Actually, you probably can ban me that easily, thinking about it.}

[Ambient Sheep]

OK, erm, done, even though mine was never expired nor full (can't help it if Hotmail was being a bit shit though).  The new addy is one I never ever use (in fact, ironically I just had to reactivate it, so it's far more likely to expire at some point then my hotmail one was, unless I remember to keep an eye on it), so in the unlikely event you might want to email me...I'm unlikely to see it.

If you still have problems generally, could you turn off notifications?

[Uncle TechTip]

What's the problem here, why is it Hotmail specifically that's causing a beef? Bumped notifications of what? I can help out with gmail invites, I got about 250 of the fuckers sat around doing nought.

[Neil]

To prevent people from registering with Hotmail accounts, you have to set up a ban for them - and unfortunately this will ban anyone that doesn't change their email addresses (although you could always change them yourself to a null value and then setup the ban).

*@hotmail.* as the ban trigger should completely block hotmail in all it's flavours.

Thanks, I think I'm going to do that, so need to get people moved off hotmail in the meantime.  I think cream is somehow blacklisted by hotmail, and they don't seem to let anything through.

I accidentally sent out an email about this to about 60% of the board, and now have hundreds more emails to delete, gah :-(

If you still have problems generally, could you turn off notifications?

Yes, I'll probably do that again, if you mean thread-watching and PM notifications, but if you mean sign-up activations then...not really, as it makes it easier for spambots.

So I don't see that I've much choice here but to give people a few weeks to change, then set up a ban for hotmail, instructing effected people to get in touch.  Maybe I should do Yahoo too.  Hotmail and Yahoo are really dreadful services anyway.

[waste of chops]

I'm pretty sure Gmail is open to everyone now. Your 250 invites are worthless, TechTip. Worthless!

[NoSleep]

Hotmail is bouncing stuff because you need to look at your account at least once every 10 days now (it used to be 3 months) or it's deleted. I turned notifications from CaB off. I can't remember if they were on as default when the boards changed, or whether I turned them on to try it out, but there were way too many of them, so I turned them off. It's only going to be people that have posted etc, ie, those who have been around the boards who are receiving them, so stickying this notice should clear it, one way way or another.

[Ambient Sheep]

Yes, I'll probably do that again, if you mean thread-watching and PM notifications, but if you mean sign-up activations then...not really, as it makes it easier for spambots.

Yeah, obviously I meant the former - but if you're going to move people off of Hotmail anyway because you need to for successful sign-up activations, then no point in taking the thread/PM functionality away, is there?

So I don't see that I've much choice here but to give people a few weeks to change, then set up a ban for hotmail, instructing effected people to get in touch.  Maybe I should do Yahoo too.

Oh...guess who the account I just changed it to is with?  :-S

I'll have to see if I can set up a secondary on MissI's POP3 account.

Hotmail and Yahoo are really dreadful services anyway.

Really?  They seem a lot better than they used to be: Hotmail's now 250MB and Yahoo is 1GB, and they both have swish new user interfaces.

Hotmail is bouncing stuff because you need to look at your account at least once every 10 days now (it used to be 3 months) or it's deleted.

Are you sure about that?  I mean, as in really sure?  I thought it was 30 days and has been for years (can barely remember the time it was 90 days, sometime back in 2000/2001?).  If they've suddenly changed it to 10 days I'm going to have to check-in rather more frequently than I do at the moment.

[NoSleep]

Are you sure about that?  I mean, as in really sure?  I thought it was 30 days and has been for years (can barely remember the time it was 90 days, sometime back in 2000/2001?).  If they've suddenly changed it to 10 days I'm going to have to check-in rather more frequently than I do at the moment.

I'm sure that it happened to me, and that I was advised that my account had been closed because I hadn't signed in for 10 days. But 30 days is the normal length of time you are allowed, unless (it seems) you are re-opening it after it was closed - they retain your account name, password, and address book, only dumping all your mail, so that signing in after 30 days revives it, but you must then check back within 10 days, as if it was a new account.

The 90 day period was going until at least 2003-2004

[Dark Sky]

I don't really understand why I have to remove my Hotmail email address...  I don't get any emails from CaB at all and presumably only used it for the sign-up notification.

I also don't have any other email address and it won't let me not have an email address in the profile...

And Hotmail's great...  I've had the same email account there for six or seven years now and have never needed another email address and never will.  Until they start charging me money for it, of course.

[Neil]

I don't really understand why I have to remove my Hotmail email address...  I don't get any emails from CaB at all...

That's why :-)   I get the blasted things bouncing back to the gmail I use for this site, which is very irritating and inconvenient.

I also don't have any other email address and it won't let me not have an email address in the profile...

As I say, I can invite you to gmail (if hotmail actually lets the email go through)

On the old board, I banned yahoo and hotmail addies from signing up at one point, and then I altered the database so that noone got PM or thread-watch notifications.  I can't do that here!  If you refer to Glitch's post, you will see my only recourse, really, is to set up a ban rule for hotmail.  That will mean that existing members will not be able to use their account until they change their email addy.

I'm sorry, I know its a hassle, but I'm not sure why I should continue to be so inconvenienced, and I can't think of another workaround.

Hotmail really seems to hate cream.

[Neil]

neveragain was also having issues today, he couldn't get his password mailed out to him.  Why?  Turns out he was using hotmail.  End result: Yet more work for me.

[Neil]

OK, after more looking I THINK I just worked out how to stop new registrations with Yahoo and Hotmail, without effecting existing accounts...I hope.

Let me know.

And I'd still appreciate it if people could junk their hotmail and yahoo accounts if possible, so I don't get all the undelivered mail that they constantly generate. 

Thanks.

[SOTS]

Is it still ok to have our little msn icons beside our names?

[Duffy]

Was just about to ask that. Presumably a hotmail address is OK in your profile as your MSN ID, as long as it's not your email address as well?

[Ambient Sheep]

I'm sorry, I know its a hassle, but I'm not sure why I should continue to be so inconvenienced, and I can't think of another workaround.

I've not used Gmail, but is it possible to set up a custom filter that would put any incoming emails from a Hotmail address with certain key words in the subject or body (e.g. "bounced" or "could not be delivered") into a custom (or even a standard) junk folder?  I can do that on my Hotmail account(!) but only on the subject line I think (as well as the From field, obviously) not the content, so I guess it depends on whether Gmail will do it on the body, and/or if the subject-line of the bounces contains anything useful (e.g. "Returned mail:").

If you can get it to work, then that way nobody else has to change anything, and your main inbox remains uncluttered.  Result!  ^{_{OK, OK, go on, tell me, what's the catch?  What have I missed?}}

[Marvin]

I do have a gmail account somewhere but have lost the details, can someone send me an invite so I can change mine? My email is in my profile. Cheers.

[buttgammon]

I've sent you an invite now.

[Father O`Blivion]

I do have a gmail account somewhere but have lost the details, can someone send me an invite so I can change mine? My email is in my profile. Cheers.

I assume gmail is Googlemail, if so

http://mail.google.com/ and sign up

(The address neilisgay is now unavailable)

[Oscar]

Oh, you wrote me! I feel so special.

Although if people with Hotmail can't get mails, then they'll be the only ones not to be notified.
Haha Hotmail fuckers.

Is Yahoo a problem then?

[butnut]

Haha, I just went to change mine from Yahoo to Gmail - and it said that another user already had that email address! Now, which of those naughty extra accounts that I may once have created did I use a proper email address for...

[Oscar]

Boing maybe?

Is Yahoo a problem?

[Neil]

Was just about to ask that. Presumably a hotmail address is OK in your profile as your MSN ID, as long as it's not your email address as well?

Yeah that's fine.

I've not used Gmail, but is it possible to set up a custom filter that would put any incoming emails from a Hotmail address with certain key words in the subject or body (e.g. "bounced" or "could not be delivered") into a custom (or even a standard) junk folder?  I can do that on my Hotmail account(!) but only on the subject line I think (as well as the From field, obviously) not the content, so I guess it depends on whether Gmail will do it on the body, and/or if the subject-line of the bounces contains anything useful (e.g. "Returned mail:").

No not really, you can just give emails a "label", they still then need to be selected and archived/deleted.

Is Yahoo a problem?

A little bit, but nowhere near as much as hotmail.  As I think Yahoo doesn't become unavailable when you don't log into it for five minutes,

Sorry again to all the people who got a mail-out from me yesterday, whoops.  It said "Announce this topic" so I figured it meant it would turn it into a sticky announcement like on the old software. 

[effinnelle]

This is probably why you are having hotmail probbies http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/11/150225

[Neil]

This is probably why you are having hotmail probbies http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/11/150225

Ah, thanks for that.  I just did an archive search, and me moaning about this goes right back to 2004. 

The real annoyance is that people sign up, and then never get their activation email as they've used hotmail.  Hopefully I've now managed to stop that on this new board, I'll test it in a bit. 

But then when people use Hotmail, I also invariably get an email every single time they get a PM notification or what-have-you, and it makes it more time-consuming for me to respond to the emails I get. 

To be honest, it's also a really bad email service.  I lost mine last year as I couldn't log in for 30 days, and I lost some really important stuff.  Gmail is where it's at, yo.

[Neil]

I assume gmail is Googlemail, if so

http://mail.google.com/ and sign up

(The address neilisgay is now unavailable)

Heh, you weren't kidding! :-D

[Ambient Sheep]

No not really, you can just give emails a "label", they still then need to be selected and archived/deleted.

Well that's a bit pants, isn't it?  I do it all the time on Hotmail, to deal with a particular spammer who always puts a fictitious girl's name in the subject line for some reason (maybe to get past Hotmail's spam filter, 'cos it seems to work!).  It make it so it all gets tossed into the junk folder, although I could make it go into a custom folder if I liked.

Gmail is where it's at, yo.

Unless you want to filter specific types of mail off into a folder where it doesn't bug you, that is...  :-)

Seriously, I'm really surprised Gmail doesn't allow for that sort of thing, I've heard so many good things about it that despite the risk of rampant privacy invasion I'm still tempted to sign up for it; however I know it has its own way of doing things, so I'm not disputing what you say!

That Slashdot article is outrageous (or rather, the situation it describes is) if true.

[Steve Lampkins]

Gmail really is great. And the built-in chat is really nice.

No not really, you can just give emails a "label", they still then need to be selected and archived/deleted.

Why not just delete them? Or set them to be archived with a custom label?




Folders are different to labels. You can still have it archived in 'all mails' with a label.

Interesting articles here and here.

[Uncle TechTip]

Also, Google offer free POP access over SSL, that might swing it for you Sheepy.