At 6:49 PM -0500 3/6/02, Jeremy Ellington is rumored to have typed:

This is a follow-up to my question earlier today. Apparently, the administrators of my server DO block mass-mailing based on a secret quota scheme (they will not tell me how the quota is measured). This is happening even though their service agreement says nothing about the prohibition of solicited mailing lists.

Er...are you saying they block _outbound_ mail, based on a quota scheme, allowing some mail to get out while other mail is stopped from the same run?

That said, is there anyway to throttle the smartlist message processing so that I can defeat their misguided SPAM-blocking?

You could probably screw around with the settings in minnames, mindiffnames, maxnames, maxsplits, maxsize, and maxconcur (see rc.init, and PLEASE make life easy on yourself and save a copy of the stock rc.init first), but it seems it would be a better idea to talk to a tech (not customer service, but someone with a clue) at your provider to see if there is a way you can work together to solve the issue. Since it isn't your fault, and you are running a confirmed opt-in list (I hope it's confirmed, anyway), there is no reason for them to interupt the delivery of your list mail. It's up to _them_ to work with you to solve the problem their filters are creating...that is what you are _paying_ them for. If not, I'd urge you to find a different provider...and make it clear to not only "customer support," but the company management, why you are leaving. Charlie (who is about as anti-spam as one can get, but can't abide ham-handed anti-spam rules that cause problems for customers - like world.std.com which rejects mail for no reason whatsoever)