WikiTree Emails and Private Messages

Question

I noticed recently that I have not been getting the daily feed emails in my gmail inbox.  I happened to look into my junk (spam) folder and found several including a private message from a member from a month ago.  Fortunately, it was a thank you rather than a question so was able to respond with an apology for not responding earlier.  I now have to regularly check my spam folder for communications from wikitree when I never had to before.  Does this have something to do with the heavy increase of new members daily and the volume of communications that must follow that increase?

Just a heads up to check your spam folders for missing communications and perhaps someone in the tech area to check the spam situation/email increase situation for the website?  Thanks.

Comments

Thanks for the reminder, Lauren. I somtimes find some in my "Promotions" box in my gmail box. I have to be careful to scan those before I delete.

Answer 1

Unfortunately people forget they set their WikiTree preferences to receive various communications automatically, so when the volume of their incoming email overwhelms them they simply tag that requested item as spam, rather than logging into WikiTree to revise their preferences. Tagging requested email as spam is wrong, as that action is recorded by Gmail, Yahoo and the other providers, and if their systems receives a threshold number of spam reports they will begin tagging those communications as spam prior to forwarding the missive to the recipient, thus the arrival of alleged spam.

 

Tagging something as spam is serious business. That designation is for unsolicited junk.

 

Whenever we no longer want to receive email we subscribed to receive, we need to unsubscribe or change our preferences to terminate the agreed upon business relationship.

Comments

I have never tagged a wikitree email as spam, so your comment does not apply in my case.  Your answer, Abby's comment and my activity feed were all in my junk folder this morning.  From day one one as a member I have always received communications in my inbox.  That has changed since a month ago and I can't believe I am the only one this is happening to.  This should be looked into as TL requests, private messages and merge requests may not be getting to members.

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Lauren, I appologize for the misunderstanding.  The topic is in the realm of geeks. 

 

With 57 people having already read this thread, and perhaps also misunderstanding, I've amplified by comment here:http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/100763/reasons-email-delivered-your-mail-spam-folder-bulk-mail-folde ; because the 57 are unlikely to return to this thread after having read it already.

I truely appreciate your taking the time to reply.  Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to see I was unclear in my above comment.  I can only hope my new communication is better understood.

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No need to apologize.  If I understand you correctly, because some members have tagged wikitree emails as spam, we are now all affected?  Terrific.

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I presume so. All of the WikiTree emails in my Yahoo email Bulk Folder are genuine and free of any noticeable spam keywords and phrases (“Your lottery winnings...”, Your UPS parcel...”, etc.). And, no offensive words or images. Just routine communications.

 

If fact, I've just now logged on to WikiTree to post this reply to your above comment because I found it within the Bulk Folder of my email account. I found 7 other G2G messages there, all deserving of an acknowledgment or reply.

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All of the emails from WikiTree today were in my gmail junk folder including your g2g responses.  Using my laptop now, there was a flag on your latest reply indicating that I may have marked wikitree emails as spam, but that is untrue.  I used the option to add wikitree to my contacts even though it should have always been (I have been a member and regularly receiving communications for a year), so hopefully that will fix the issue, but I will continue to monitor the junk folder.

The bigger issue is whether other users of the site are causing the problem and the many members who are unaware that their emails are being redirected which will cause many more problems down the line with merging requests and unresponsive manager situations.  Thank you for your responses George and I hope the WikiTree tech people will take this seriously and look into a solution.

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Thank you for explaining this, George. Excellent point.