Vasculitis Foundation in New Mexico: Email from this blog is now "fixed"

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Email from this blog is now "fixed"

For the record, and so you see how it will look, I am also posting this message to the blog.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joseph Carpenter
Date: Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 10:46 PM
Subject: Email from the NMVasculitis blog is now "fixed"
To: NMVasculitis

Ladies and gentlemen,

Security Change To Blogger Leaves BlogSend Email Distribution Broken

As you all know, the blogs posts were sent automatically to our Google Groups mailing list, and then you got a copy as if I had sent it to you personally. That feature was broken in mid-November. I did not notice until December, so if you missed a few announcements, please visit the blog to read them at your convenience.

The big deal is this. Instead of appearing to come from the posting author, usually all posts coming from Blogger will appear to come from Blogger <no-reply@blogger.com>, regardless of who wrote them.

I have set up the workaround, so instead of appearing to come from "Joseph Carpenter", group messages that originate from the blog will appear to come from "Blogger".

It also means that when you reply to one of those posts, instead of coming to me, you will have to send it to the group, or manually add my address back in the recipient field. It is a pain in the butt.

All the people who get the Google Group mail from NMVasculitis, must add "no-reply@blogger.com" to their whitelist of acceptable senders if they have a spam blocking tool.

I have sent messages declaring my disapproval, but you know how it is with 800 pound gorillas. They pretty much do what they like.

I will give it a month or so, then if they do not fix this in a satisfactory way, I may choose to move my blog and/or website to another platform to regain the easy management with Email notifications.

WHAT HAPPENED FOR ANYONE WHO CARES TO KNOW

Google Blogger made a change to the way they send out Email. They no longer spoof the author address, which was a good thing, but instead use no-reply@blogger.com as the reply to address. That works on paper as a temporary fix to some unidentified issue they were having, but breaks several real world functions in the way Blogger interacts with Google Groups.

If you manage a blog in Blogger that is also set to send mail to a Google Group, here is what you need to know... To workaround this error, the google group owner must add no-reply@blogger.com as a member of the mailing list. Then you have to set that new "member" to receive no Email, and set them so that all posts are moderated. Otherwise, anyone who spoofs the no-reply@blogger.com address, and it will happen, will also be able to spam your group.

Thank you,