Why you might not have been receiving my e-mail

Sunday, October 14, 2007

For a while now, my e-mails have been ending up in many people’s junk (or bulk or spam) folders, including my own! When I sent MYSELF e-mails as reminders or whatnot, these e-mails—to me—would be treated as spam and dumped into my “bulk” folder. More importantly, I never knew if my e-mails would be received when I sent them to someone, which was getting frustrating, to say the least. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening (OK, so I can be dense—no news there), until today. (The “a ha” moment came at 5:00 AM, as I lied awake, pondering yet again WHY WHY WHY?!?) It seems that my little ol’ Geocities website link in my signature line was the culprit, which is pretty goofy when it comes to my own Yahoo account, considering that Yahoo owns Geocities. (I guess mega-website geniuses can be pretty dense, too—no news there, either.) SO, I’ve now changed my signature line, and hopefully, my e-mails are now being received. If in the past, you sent me an e-mail and wondered why I ignored you, I probably didn’t. If it was recently, check your junk mail folder. Or e-mail me again (especially if you e-mailed me a while back). Give me another chance and drop me another line. This includes the MANY people who so graciously sent me e-mails after “The Chronicles of Ben” ran in the Chicago Tribune in June, 2007. I replied to each and every one of you, and I’d hate to think you didn’t receive my e-mails.

Thanks for reading this.

Dave Royko

UPDATE (May, 2009): Yahoo has closed down GeoCities, so my old website is only a memory. And it seems there are no similar problems (not yet, anyway) with my Webs website address being in my-mail signature.Yippee.