The change logs are where this would most likely be announced:
Not receiving emails just started the same day - #47 by CharleyHamilton
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May be less likely if responding to rsvp requests prevented additional reminders to rsvp from being sent. Addressing these basic functionality flaws that have been long standing would likely go a long way to improve this.
Right, here’s a hay bale… watch for the needle.
30 minutes on the line with Comcast was, unfortunately, unsuccessful… likely because the providers get their blacklist information from third parties who make these classifications…
@MatthewMcCormick - which is what i was pointing out when you stated that this is a trivial and simple fix. Well not so much
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I think if you are RSVP’d no, it stops the reminders. Not 100% sure, but I thought I experienced this.
That said, I agree that a little added functionality would go a long way. Adding an RSVP section in each email footer to show what your status is and allow them to just click a link to change it.
—-
Your RSVP status: Unresponsive
Please click the appropriate link to let us know if you are Going or Not going and would like for reminders to be disabled for this event.
——
Your RSVP status: Going
Not going? If something has changed, click the link to change your RSVP.
——
No emails would be sent anymore for that event if they have chosen Not going
Then have the Unsubscribe line lower down on all, JIK.
It’s so easy for leaders to overdo the reminders in the system. It would be good if there was some best practices shared to let them so that they know more than 2 or 3 is probably too many. Probably don’t need any email reminders for regular meetings unless it’s after a holiday or odd month (assuming they’re sharing their calendar vCalendar feed also).
Email to text would allow more timely reminders since the vCalendar events don’t seem to have native calendar reminder setting included in each event. Just building it into the calendar would be even better.
It also doesn’t help that Scoutbook strips away text formatting so that every email looks like a 90s Unix email instead of rich text of something like a modern newsletter program. A little formatting would go a long way for readability.
Unless you’re a repeat offender, it’s usually pretty easy to submit request and have it removed. Nearly all have a get out of jail free pass on a first or rare issue. You submit the IP in a form and it’s released. Usually automated and without fuss if it’s a rare violation. If you are released and it happens again soon, then it gets harder.
They’ll have to look into is what caused the blacklist triggering though. IME it’s more likely caused by a compromised user account that IS/WAS actually sending out spam, phishing, malware, spyware or links. Usually thousands of emails a minute and not just to subscribers. Providers have honeypots to catch those messages. Spamhaus specifically is a widely used and trusted blacklist. It seems a lot less likely to be blacklisted because of manually reported emails that were sent to known subscribers with a valid and automated unsubscribe option. Possible, but much less likely IME.
Usually an outgoing mail system will monitor emails sent by users to make sure it’s not sending malicious email. If not content inspection, at least by volume detection. For individual users you can also simply throttle how many they can send per hour. Then as the bots rush to dump all of the spam emails into the outgoing mail system, the sending queue will hold them based on throttling rules. Admins can be notified that the outgoing queue is building up message count which is usually a sign that someone has been throttled because they’re spamming.
In a bulk delivery system I’m not sure how they would tune throttling effectively to balance with prompt delivery, but they would be able to check logs and reports to see what accounts have sent the most messages. It might not be the scoutbook.donotreply@scouting.org account specifically. It’s possible that it’s not even on their specific server, but I think it’s likely they have a dedicated IP.
Impossible to fully know or troubleshoot without seeing behind the hood. But I hope they’ve found the issue and requested the releases so we can get back to it. 
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BSA IT is in contact with the company that blacklisted Scoutbook. Many e-mail service providers use 3rd party spam detection services. It is one of these services that blacklisted Scoutbook. BSA IT is trying to get them to remove Scoutbook from the blacklist, however, it is all up to this 3rd party service.
As we get more information we can share, we will update the banner message. When the Scoutbook is removed from the blacklist, we will post in the change log.
The only workaround we have at this time is to use an e-mail system other than Scoutbook to communicate with your units. We know this is not as easy as using Scoutbook, however, until Scoutbook is removed from the backlist, this is the only solution.
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Bugs happen to often. They need to hire a professional company to re-design scoutbook and make it reliable. It would save them money in the long run.
How would it save money?
@scouter11 - submit your proposal
They could get rid of some IT staff if everything worked correctly.
I would absolutely do that, but they would not listen anyway.
- Create a list of every bug currently found in the system.
- Reach out to a company that specialized in website creation and/or bug fixes.
- Work with them to determine if the best course of action is for them to try and fix scoutbook, or creating something from scratch.
- Have them implement their plan
- Scoutbook is fixed!!
It’s that simple, i’ve done this before for other websites.
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I would implement if I could, but, as I said originally, no one would listen because they don’t care about solutions.
Remember the scout law.
A scout is kind and friendly.
A scout is also helpful, which I am trying to be.
Well 2 Scouters are about to have accounts suspended it seems - I suggest they calm down
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I would strongly suggest including a link to step-by-step instructions for pulling a list of emails in a semi-automated manner via the reporting system in the banner both here in the forums and on Scoutbook. I think it would reduce a lot of frustration about the email issues if people don’t feel like they need to go profile to profile to pull emails (as I think a lot of folks are not aware of how to access that functionality).
@AndrewBurns you would use Roster Builder (NOT Report Builder) - that would be easiest way to pull emails - select Unit > then select Leader option > Email > then Scout Options > Parent > Show email
Note the reports only return adult e-mail addresses. Scout e-mail addresses are not available via report.
