Mail Filtering to be added to all servers tonight 12/18

[Dotable Nick]

Originally Posted by Josh

This whole "take it or leave it" attitude is what annoys me the most.

There was a time when changes of this nature were discussed with clients and their opinions were taken onboard before a final decision was made (not only were they taken onboard but they were also valued). Those days have gone, and that, to me means Dotable's unique selling point has also gone.

I've reviewed this whole thread...

Your opinions are valued. Billy is the System Administrator, if you have any feedback, please direct it at myself or Ditlev.

The opposition to this feature comes at a shock to me. This is a feature we're charging $4.95/mo for at other brands, and is often charged more than $2/mailbox independently. I didn't open this up for conversation because I couldn't imagine anyone not wanting it.

With that said, we will leave spamassasin on the server, and if you would like, you are welcome to request that your MX points directly at the server.

I agree this thread has not been handled properly - and I will speak with Billy regarding how we can better handle this. If you would like *not* to use mailfiltering.com, please let us know.

[Josh]

Nick,

I think you'll find a majority of people do/will want this service. The way in which you implemented it is the problem.

My objection is that I have been forced to use a service I don't consider I need, without being given a detailed and thorough explanation of the service's capabilities or limitations and without the opportunity to voice my opinions and concerns over it. It was, as I said earlier, a "take it or leave it", an ultimatum, and that smacks of arrogance.

Dotable, like HTTPme before it, was built on a reputation of honesty, integrity, consultation, listening and mutual respect. There was also a certain degree of flexibility in some areas.

Some of those qualities have thus far been maintained by the new management. Some IMO have not.

Thank you for acknowledging that this could have been handled better.

[dkg]

I agree with Josh.

Nick, It's not as much opposition to the new service as it is a reaction to the (IMO) flawed introduction/roll-out process.

BTW, I assumed posting to this forum was, in effect, directing comments to you Nick.

Now, I'll go back to being quiet about the subject.

[salsahead]

Originally Posted by Dotable Nick

The opposition to this feature comes at a shock to me. This is a feature we're charging $4.95/mo for at other brands, and is often charged more than $2/mailbox independently. I didn't open this up for conversation because I couldn't imagine anyone not wanting it.

I am not opposed in principle. It's just not what I signed up for. The assumption is that those of us ending up at dotable don't know what we want and will readily leap for something labelled 'better'. I figured out workarounds for the Cpanel environment long ago (e.g. per domain-wide Bayesian SPAM/HAM learning using sa-learn via cron). I was pretty happy. Now all that knowledge is worthless and replaced by a flood of spam I don't know how to control.

I am not a reseller. Reading this thread is the first I have read about this new feature.

Originally Posted by Dotable Nick

With that said, we will leave spamassasin on the server, and if you would like, you are welcome to request that your MX points directly at the server.

I am on shadow and see that SA and friends are still there, but not in the Cpanel. My MX is set to my domain IP by external DNS. I have subdomains which point to services hosted elsewhere and so I believe I have good reason to handle my own DNS. I believe that my MX currently points directly to the server, but the magic is not happening at the moment. Instructions on how to reengage spamassassin would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by Dotable Nick

I agree this thread has not been handled properly - and I will speak with Billy regarding how we can better handle this. If you would like *not* to use mailfiltering.com, please let us know.

I am willing to try mailfiltering.com but have not received any directions on how to to do this. Is it simply a matter of pointing MX records to mx.mailfiltering.com ? For domains where dotable handles the DNS, this seems to be what has happened.

[Dotable Nick]

I am willing to try mailfiltering.com but have not received any directions on how to to do this. Is it simply a matter of pointing MX records to mx.mailfiltering.com ? For domains where dotable handles the DNS, this seems to be what has happened.

Open a ticket - we need to do a bit on our end too.

[Dotable Nick]

I considered this service an addition to our network, similar to how we would add say a Cisco firewall - basically a security implementation. Hence it was rolled out in a network-wide manner, as it's protecting the whole Dotable network.

It still needs some work - but it was well tested and did very well at blocking spam. I think part of the reason you guys are seeing *more* spam is because spammers cache MX records, so now without spamassassin or any spam prevention on the server, you guys are getting unfiltered mail.

[foobic]

Originally Posted by Dotable Nick

With that said, we will leave spamassasin on the server, and if you would like, you are welcome to request that your MX points directly at the server.

I agree this thread has not been handled properly - and I will speak with Billy regarding how we can better handle this. If you would like *not* to use mailfiltering.com, please let us know.

Thanks Nick. Please get SA reinstalled on mars. I'll continue to handle the MX records myself but I would appreciate having normal spam filtering reinstated ASAP.

The new mail system interests me, and if it had been properly rolled out I think it would have been seen as a nice bonus. But to have it imposed on everyone with significant issues to some, minimal notice and no opt-out available - that's just not acceptable. Particularly since it seems to be still in development, judging by some of Billy's posts, eg. this:

Originally Posted by Dotable Billy

I actually had asked the developers this same question. They told me that next version will have them turned off. I believe it was for initial debugging and they left them on.

You say the new system works really well and I honestly hope you're right, but to me it's a new system with potential problems just like any other - quality and reliability remain to be proven. I'd be very happy to test it out but I won't use my clients as unwitting guinea pigs.

[SniffTheGlove]

I will be happy with the new service Nick/Billy however it was short notice for the implementation.

I disagree with Billy's statement "This is something that we have talked about for months now, I do apologize if you feel that it came out of nowhere, however this is something we have mentioned a number of times." but the only reference I can see is in a post from Nick "Seeking those looking for better spam fighting options" on the 28th October 2008 and it was mentioned to be a Beta service and was wanting people to opt-in.

6 weeks later it is brought in with a few hours notice for the whole of Dotable.

For me personally it would of been nice to have had say a weeks notice of the implementation (so I could have time to rewrite clients spam rules etc) and also time to prepare myself etc.

Now that SA is not available (I am happy it's gone but only if the implementation is going to be much better) but I would like to know a lot more about Mailfiltering.com and how it works.

How much control we have over it (in the previous thread Nick states "We're still developing the customer frontend for the clients.") so what will this front end do for us?

Thanks and all have a great Christmas

[Ric]

Hello ..

can anybody help please .. WHAT is "mailfiltering.com "?.. and .. Where is SOP after rolling out?

[grovenet]

Originally Posted by Dotable Billy

There should have been no need to change the MX records unless you decided to host DNS offserver... as I said before this is unsupported and there is no reason you should do this.

After lots of reading, a long-ish time ago, I was led to believe that having the registry (or a. n. other 3rd party DNS provider) was potentially more reliable than letting the hosting server do it. I'd put money on the 'one' server going down before UKReg or 123-reg's DNS!!

I too only have a few domains using the registry's DNS though.

I'm surprised that that this has been a forced move. I would have expected an opt-in system via cpanel on a per-domain basis.

Not so long ago, talk of enforced mail filtering was resulting in shouts of "big brother" and other privacy complaints.