large number of unsubscribes for bounces this morning - Listadmins - lists.wikimedia.org

List overview All Threads
Download

large number of unsubscribes for bounces this morning

Bounce handling by email reply

Mail delivery issues

Mark A. Hershberger

1 May 2023 1 May '23

1:04 p.m.

Hey list administrators! This morning, I woke up to a couple hundred automatic unsubscribes for bounces on the WikiApiary mailing list. Did anything happen on the server side that may have caused this? Mark.

Reply

Show replies by date

Platonides

1 May 1 May

9:18 p.m.

Most likely, these were a consequence of the monthly subscription reminders bouncing for all those users. This leads to the question on what caused all those reminders to fail, though. Looks like some error at their server. Were they all using the same domain? I didn't see any unsubscription spike here.

Reply

Mark A. Hershberger

9:39 p.m.

On Mon, 2023-05-01 at 21:18 +0000, Platonides wrote:

Most likely, these were a consequence of the monthly subscription reminders bouncing for all those users.

That makes sense. But now that I've gone back and looked, I see TWO unsubscription notifications for each email. That seems excessive.

This leads to the question on what caused all those reminders to fail, though. Looks like some error at their server. Were they all using the same domain? I didn't see any unsubscription spike here.

I only saw the spike on one mailing list that I have but it seems to be exclusively @aol.com and @yahoo.com email addresses. https://www.volomp.com/isp/bye-bye-aol-yahoo-hello-oath/ Mark.

Reply

Risker

9:50 p.m.

In my experience, both AOL and Yahoo email addresses have been a problem for at least 10 years, and the problem is from their end, not ours. On the other hand, why are we sending out monthly subscription reminders? Aside from the routine unsubscription of AOL and Yahoo accounts, do we have any reason to believe this is a useful exercise? Incidentally, Mark, the link you provided is listed as "suspicious" by my security system (Norton)....is there somewhere else we could read that information? Risker/Anne (Listadmin on a bunch of lists, going back to 2009). On Mon, 1 May 2023 at 17:40, Mark A. Hershberger <mah(a)everybody.org> wrote:

On Mon, 2023-05-01 at 21:18 +0000, Platonides wrote:

Most likely, these were a consequence of the monthly subscription reminders bouncing for all those users.

That makes sense. But now that I've gone back and looked, I see TWO unsubscription notifications for each email. That seems excessive.

This leads to the question on what caused all those reminders to fail, though. Looks like some error at their server. Were they all using the same domain? I didn't see any unsubscription spike here.

I only saw the spike on one mailing list that I have but it seems to be exclusively @aol.com and @yahoo.com email addresses. https://www.volomp.com/isp/bye-bye-aol-yahoo-hello-oath/ Mark. _______________________________________________ Listadmins mailing list -- listadmins(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to listadmins-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org To request technical changes for a specific list, please instead create a task in Phabricator. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists

Reply

effe iets anders

10:11 p.m.

Based on some emails I got from Yahoo a week or so ago, it looks like they may have made their deactivation policy a bit more aggressive recently for people that didn't use their emails. Not sure if that would explain it entirely, but it might be a piece of the puzzle. Lodewijk On Mon, May 1, 2023 at 2:50 PM Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

In my experience, both AOL and Yahoo email addresses have been a problem for at least 10 years, and the problem is from their end, not ours. On the other hand, why are we sending out monthly subscription reminders? Aside from the routine unsubscription of AOL and Yahoo accounts, do we have any reason to believe this is a useful exercise? Incidentally, Mark, the link you provided is listed as "suspicious" by my security system (Norton)....is there somewhere else we could read that information? Risker/Anne (Listadmin on a bunch of lists, going back to 2009). On Mon, 1 May 2023 at 17:40, Mark A. Hershberger <mah(a)everybody.org> wrote:

On Mon, 2023-05-01 at 21:18 +0000, Platonides wrote:

Most likely, these were a consequence of the monthly subscription reminders bouncing for all those users.

That makes sense. But now that I've gone back and looked, I see TWO unsubscription notifications for each email. That seems excessive.

This leads to the question on what caused all those reminders to fail, though. Looks like some error at their server. Were they all using the same domain? I didn't see any unsubscription spike here.

I only saw the spike on one mailing list that I have but it seems to be exclusively @aol.com and @yahoo.com email addresses. https://www.volomp.com/isp/bye-bye-aol-yahoo-hello-oath/ Mark. _______________________________________________ Listadmins mailing list -- listadmins(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to listadmins-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org To request technical changes for a specific list, please instead create a task in Phabricator. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists

_______________________________________________ Listadmins mailing list -- listadmins(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to listadmins-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org To request technical changes for a specific list, please instead create a task in Phabricator. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists

Reply

Mark A. Hershberger

2 May 2 May

12:18 a.m.

On Mon, 2023-05-01 at 17:50 -0400, Risker wrote:

Incidentally, Mark, the link you provided is listed as "suspicious" by my security system (Norton)....is there somewhere else we could read that information?

Hopefully Norton isn't blacklistsing WaPo or NYT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/12/verizon-takes-massive-… https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/business/verizon-yahoo-aol-sale.html The WaPo article is following up on the news in the link I sent earlier which was talking about how Verizon was pushing AOL and Yahoo! users to a single email system managed by a company they created called Oath. The WaPo followup, published 6 months after the link I sent, says Verizon is giving up on making any money on them. And, then, 2.5 years later, you have the NYT saying they are trying to dump AOL and Yahoo! completely. (Both of the above articles mention Oath, which is how I found them.) Sorry to go on about this. The talk about Yahoo! takes me back to a time before Wikipedia existed and one of the founders of Yahoo! was making a big donation to the University where I worked. Mark.

Reply

Amir Sarabadani

11:11 a.m.

The reason for mass unsub due to bounces has to do with frequency of emails in the mailing list. Basically, disabled accounts due to abuse or departures pile up but the mailman doesn't know about it until there is a mail which would get a bounce response, if you get five bounce responses (or more, I don't know the exact number), then the mailman starts unsubscribing them. So the build up is gradual, the removal is sudden. That's usually how it happens. Unless AOL/Yahoo decide for whatever reason to stop accepting email from our mailing lists mailserver and start bouncing them (thinking they are spoofed, which happens sometimes) but then still need to get multiple bounces still to start unsubscribing users. HTH Am Di., 2. Mai 2023 um 02:19 Uhr schrieb Mark A. Hershberger < mah(a)everybody.org>gt;:

On Mon, 2023-05-01 at 17:50 -0400, Risker wrote:

Incidentally, Mark, the link you provided is listed as "suspicious" by my security system (Norton)....is there somewhere else we could read that information?

Hopefully Norton isn't blacklistsing WaPo or NYT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/12/verizon-takes-massive-… https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/business/verizon-yahoo-aol-sale.html The WaPo article is following up on the news in the link I sent earlier which was talking about how Verizon was pushing AOL and Yahoo! users to a single email system managed by a company they created called Oath. The WaPo followup, published 6 months after the link I sent, says Verizon is giving up on making any money on them. And, then, 2.5 years later, you have the NYT saying they are trying to dump AOL and Yahoo! completely. (Both of the above articles mention Oath, which is how I found them.) Sorry to go on about this. The talk about Yahoo! takes me back to a time before Wikipedia existed and one of the founders of Yahoo! was making a big donation to the University where I worked. Mark. _______________________________________________ Listadmins mailing list -- listadmins(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to listadmins-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org To request technical changes for a specific list, please instead create a task in Phabricator. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists

-- Amir (he/him)

Reply

Platonides

3 May 3 May

10:07 p.m.

Not really. That makes the time at which the unsubscriptions happen look more random, but it still needs that delivery to many yahoo users failed "5 emails ago", which (unless the list had a large gap between mails then) should be relatively uncommon. Many unsubscriptions from the same provider look like yahoo bounced many emails at that point (an email rejected because it was considered suspicious, throttling, etc.) which made mailman think all yahoo users failed, and thus ultimately unsubscribe them all at the same time (still, if it was content-related, the individual mail check should have prevented the unsubscription...). Cheers

Reply

380

days inactive

382

days old

listadmins@lists.wikimedia.org

Manage subscription

7 comments

5 participants

tags (0)

participants (5)

Amir Sarabadani
effe iets anders
Mark A. Hershberger
Platonides
Risker