On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 12:47 PM, <WJhonson@aol.com> wrote: > Wrong Joan. > The mail is being blocked at the receiving point, not at the sending point. > The headers explain clearly that it's Rootsweb who is blocking the mail. > > > ==== Hi Will, Let me try to explain. I tend to use analogies, so I hope you don't mind. Let me use Football (the sport) as a way to simplify the explanation. Sending a mail is kinda like a football team. You are like a quarterback--- you throw out a football (E-mail) in any direction (to any List or person), AOL, Yahoo, GoogleMail or any other ISP are like receivers; you intend as the quarterback to get your football (E-mail) from you to any ISP you use as an E-mail sender. But around the team's receiver (here AOL) are other players...the servers that each ISP uses. Any particular team member in a football game can get blocked, knocked down, commit some error (I forget what they are called in football). But, team members might also function well in a game. An Umpire (SORBS) are hired to watch the ball (E-mail) and prevent or punish errors (team players who do wrong things). A receiver can be puniished if they make a mistake, but most often it is just one or two team players (the servers in AOL) who are punished. The UMP (SORBS) sometimes reacts by sidelining (penaliizing) the team player (server -- who plays around a receiver, the ISP). Sidelining of course would only happen if the offense (abuse of e-mail) was a big offense (s*p*a*m*). And just liike in sports, some penalities carry a monetary fine (in this case, the ISP who offends must pay a fee to correct the bad behavior and promise not to do it again). Although in a Football game, everyone knows the types of penalities, length of penalties, etc., in the world of E-mail only the Umpire (SORBS) and the receiver (the ISP) know the length of the punishment, when it will end, etc. BUT, in terms of the other players (other servers), they can still "play". So if one team player (server) has been sidelined (blacklisted), the quarterback (you) may still be lucky enough to get the ball (your E-mail) to another team player (another server) who is not sidelined (blacklisted) and the team player who catches your ball (E-mail) may run it all the way down-field (through all the hand-offs that occur in sending an E-mail) to the end-zone (to the goal: your E-mail had arrived to its destination). So, when Pat or Joan says to try again, they mean you may get lucky to hit another team player (server) and get your e-mail through that try. You as the quarterback doesn't pay the financial penalty for a receiver's mistakes. However, you may be inconvenienced and may lose that game (getting that E-mail through). Hope I didn't slaughter the analogy very much. Judy