I didn't get Tuesday Trivia this week! What do I do?

[Ken Jennings]

I think I managed to re-send so that few or no recipients got the quiz twice.

I'm still not really sure what happened here. Might have been my hosting company, might have been something on my end...but the "fix" that eventually worked makes no sense to me. I'm SO glad I'm not programming anymore.

[skullturfq]

I didn't get it again this week so I thought I'd post here to try to determine if something similar to last week happened and a bunch of people didn't get it, or if I'm the odd one out this time.

[Mahatma]

Same here. I emailed tuesdaytrivia[at]ken-jennings[dot]com, asking for a resend.

Pesky inter(cob)webs.

[elwood]

After not getting the trivia two or three times out of 20-something weeks, and after my request for a resend went unanswered until after the next monday deadline one of those times, I subscribed at two other addresses on different email servers figuring that at least one of them would get it in any given week. Last week, none of the three received the email until after the resend. After the resend they all received it.

This week none of the three received the email again. I just sent in my request for a re-send to my main address, but I think this is probably not a problem for just me given that all three didn't get it again, and there is at least one other person reporting missing email for consecutive weeks.

I believe the email problems you are having in general (not just these two weeks) are not related to spam filtering; I'm sure the email sometimes gets sorted as spam for some people, but that definitely wasn't the reason for me in the past nor this week. I run the email server at my main address and have access to all the system logs (and I've been a sysadmin especially dealing with "infrastructure" like DNS and email since the very early 90's), so I know it isn't any sort of spam filtering or blocking my server is doing.

I do know of at least two "problems" with the list that will make it more likely to be marked as spam (and can tell you what those are in email or PM or here if you want to know), but as I said those aren't the reason when I've not received the email.

[Ken Jennings]

I do know of at least two "problems" with the list that will make it more likely to be marked as spam (and can tell you what those are in email or PM or here if you want to know), but as I said those aren't the reason when I've not received the email.

Sure, feel free.

[elwood]

I think these problems are both minor; in fact I think the second one is only a potention problem but not currently affecting your list. The first is minor in that it used to cause a larger jump in spam scoring that it appears to do now, and the second because your list is so low volume and subscribers can't post to the list.

1. No "Message-Id" email header. The internet email RFCs specify that email must have a Message-Id header, and define what it is and how to make it unique, etc. Many "email transport" programs will add one to any email they receive that is missing this field, prior to passing it on. When I get list posts, the message-id is always added by my local system's email transport software, which means whatever software you use to render and send the emails isn't generating one and the smtp server of your hosting company isn't adding it either. I find it interesting that the email seems to go thru both exim and qmail on your hosting company's servers without a message-id being added, but it is really the responsibility of the program that generates the email to provide this header field.

Spam frequently is generated by programs that don't bother with the message-id. A missing message-id (or one added by the receiving system to an email that originated off-system) is used by some anti-spam detection systems; it will typically not be sufficient to block the email but may raise the 'score' that makes it more likely to be marked/filtered as spam.

Having said that, the spam filtering I use seems to no longer raise the score based on this trait; it used to.

2. No email address verification. I don't think this has you on any blocklists at this time, but that could happen and then it is difficult to get off. Here are some URLs describing closed loop address verification and why you should use it:

http://www.mail-abuse.com/an_listmgntgdlines.html
http://www.cluelessmailers.org/info/listmanagement.html

If you implement verification there is at least one trap to avoid; if you just send a verification email every time an email is submitted you create a way for a bot to mail-bomb someone thru your website, and that would be worse than getting subscribed to a one-per-week unverified list, and more likely to get you blacklisted than you are now. You'd be wise to have a daily threshold per email address, but something larger than one.

[melissa]

Help! I'm still having ISP issues. Could somebody please send me the Tuesday Trivia due TODAY at darred29@yahoo.com?

[elwood]

FYI, this is the third week out of the last six where none of my three subscribed email addresses on three completely independent email server/systems received the trivia email.

[skullturfq]

FYI, this is the third week out of the last six where none of my three subscribed email addresses on three completely independent email server/systems received the trivia email.

Something similar is true for me, except that in my case it's just one email address.

[Mahatma]

I missed out on this week's, although I've gotten the last two.

[DadofTwins]

I have the same alternating weeks problem. Anyone know of a fix?

[melissa]

I missed out on this week's, although I've gotten the last two.

Check your email!

[Mahatma]

Got it. Is there anybody else out there who would like to email me the answers?

I keed! I keed!

[econgator]

Got it. Is there anybody else out there who would like to email me the answers?

I can email plenty of wrong answers!

[elwood]

And again, three independently subscribed emails did not receive the trivia this week.

Two weeks ago I followed the official way to ask for a re-send and never received one. I don't mean to be ungrateful, but at this point I give up.

Thanks for the game, it was fun while it lasted.

[skullturfq]

Same thing happened to me. Can somebody who received this week's send it to me in a PM or email it to id.mercer "at" utoronto.ca? Thanks

[bwouns]

I didn't get it either. Did anyone get it?

[econgator]

I got it.

[Mahatma]

I missed it again. I've already asked for a re-send, but we'll see if that works out.

However, unlike Elwood, I have not yet decided that I'm not getting my money's worth.

[Ken Jennings]

Two weeks ago I followed the official way to ask for a re-send and never received one. I don't mean to be ungrateful, but at this point I give up.

Hey, no one is more mystified than me about the spotty emails. Over 10,000 of these emails go out every week, and there's no way for me to tell when the failures are at the send vs. the receiving and, and even when there's glitches in the sending, I'm at the mercy of my hosting company here. I'm looking for a new mass-mailing solution right now.

Not receiving replacement emails is definitely something we can fix though. Usually that's a result of the quiz grader being a little slow to get to the quizzes one particular week, meaning she doesn't check that account in time to get replacement quizzes out. I'll see if I can get that fixed.

[elwood]

However, unlike Elwood, I have not yet decided that I'm not getting my money's worth.

Hey, I got my money's worth; it was definately fun. It was a lot more fun when I was getting the email more than half the time. I'm sorry if I was rude when saying I was giving up.

[melissa]

I missed it again. I've already asked for a re-send, but we'll see if that works out.

However, unlike Elwood, I have not yet decided that I'm not getting my money's worth.

Money's worth or not, I emailed the quiz to you.

[debramc]

didn't get it this week again, though I've now subscribed my husband's email as well, and requested replacements be sent to his and my emails. I sent requests both Wednesday and Friday this week . Can someone PM me a copy? Thanks

[skullturfq]

Can someone PM me a copy? Thanks

Same here. Thank you in advance.

ETA. Received via PM, so everybody else can now ignore this message. Thanks econgator!

[debramc]

I still haven't gotten it, by email or PM. Please, anybody? Help?

ETA: never mind, just got it within minutes of sending one more request. Thanks Ken and/or your helpers...!