Requirements for departments who send mass mailings

Hey Everyone,

We have been having problems lately with departments sending mass
mailings through our system. We have come up with a statement of
requirements for these departments. Please read it and, if it
pertains to you, respond, either to me personally or
consult@berkeley.edu

Thanks,

Bernie Tower
CalMail Consulting

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Requirements for campus departments who send mass mailings

The CalMail team recognizes that campus departments occasionally need
to send legitimate email to large populations both on and off campus.
For example, some academic or public service programs distribute
their online newsletters to thousands of subscribers. Unfortunately,
large-scale mailings that are not coordinated with CalMail may cause
significant problems for the system, as was the case in a few recent
mailings.

This is to remind everyone that electronic mailings large enough to
negatively affect campus network or systems performance must be
coordinated with CalMail staff. Please note that CalMail staff are
authorized to block or throttle mail from servers when the behavior
is impacting the performance of the CalMail service.

 From the CalMail team's operational point of view, a mass mailing is
"a single mailing of more than 100 recipients, where a mailing is the
sending of one or more messages that are substantially the same". If
your mailings fall under this category, please contact the CalMail
Team at consult@berkeley.edu for consultation, prior to the first
time you send this type of mail. We would like to work with you to
ensure that your mailings, as well as others on the campus, get out
in a timely fashion.

The following recommendations from the CalMail team should allow you
to send a legitimate mass mailing without impacting CalMail customers:

1. Open only one connection to CalMail at any given time. This
should be sufficient for sending out a mass mailing.

2. The number of messages sent per connection should always be
greater than one, with pauses between connections.

Message rates for mass mailings should not need to exceed one message
per second. For example: If one message is sent every other second
over one connection, 7000 recipients would receive their email over a
two hour period (off hours) with no noticeable effect on the CalMail
system.

3. Mass mailings should be limited to non-peak CalMail hours, i.e.,
after 6:00 pm and before 8:00 am. Mailings should be spread out over
multiple hours. The best window is midnight to 8:00 am.

Because spam has become so prevalent, most recipients use some method
of spam filtering. This needs to be taken into consideration if you
use email for approved marketing purposes. To avoid having your
legitimate email message labeled as spam, refrain from using overly
promotional language and excessive punctuation in your email subject
line.

Practice email etiquette by sending mass mailings only to those who
have requested it. Respect the privacy of people on your mailing
list by refusing to share their information with other organizations.
For more campus mass mailing requirements, see the Campus e-Berkeley
Policy section on "Use of Electronic Mail" at:
http://itpolicy.berkeley.edu:7015/e-Berkeley.policy.html#mass

For help in assessing the potential impact of your mailing on network
performance, or to request assistance, contact consult@berkeley.edu.

The CalMail Team
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Received on Wed Oct 26 10:54:46 2005