[getpost]

This is super-annoying for legitimate, infrequent correspondents. Somebody asks me to email them something, and I need to take the time to notice and read the automated response, click to access an unknown website, and then try to solve the captcha, which sometimes requires multiple attempts. You asked for my recipe, don't hassle me when I'm trying to help you.

[BeetleB]

When I set it up, I knew it could be annoying, which is why I automatically whitelisted everyone I knew. I was seriously concerned people would rather just not be able to send me emails and will willfully ignore my emails, but as I pointed out, that's the exception rather than the rule.

And I am proactive. If I see an email in the quarantine folder from someone I want to be on the whitelist, I press a button and he's in. This isn't a hard line, binary, black and white situation. I can and do place people in the whitelist.

If I've requested something from someone, I don't expect them to respond to the email, and I usually reply back to them with an apology about the email. So far, no one has complained.

And I don't use captchas. There's no need for them. All they have to do is click on the link and type in their email address.

[dalai]

If you still check the quarantine folder once a week, do you even need the challenge email? At most it will take a few days longer to reply to a valid email and then you can whitelist the sender.

[BeetleB]

Think of it as "if they respond to the challenge email it'll get in front of my eyes quicker".

Also, keep in mind when I wrote it, I was getting 20-50 spam a day (not counting unsubscribe emails). And part of the motivation was that legitimate emails were simply getting lost (I wouldn't notice them in the sea of noise). Checking once a week would mean scanning hundreds of emails for the few legitimate ones. The challenge-response is more reliable.

(Today I get almost no spam - someone fixed a broken pipe on the Internet).

[masukomi]

Are you speaking from experience or theorizing?

My thought is that if i asked you for an email, and I was running a system like this, i wouldn't be a dick and make you jump through that hoop. I'd proactively add your email to the whitelist before you even sent me something.

[BeetleB]

In practice this is not as easy as you think. More often than not, you don't know the email address they will use. I often tell them up front that they'll get a spam checking email that they are free to ignore. I whitelist once I get their email.

[sokoloff]

Who is to say that you have their email address? Even if you do, who is to say that the mail you're asking is going to come from that email address?

[getpost]

Exactly! I meet someone and they ask for info. I offer to email them with the info. I get their card and they don’t ask for my email address. I’m speaking from experience.

Even if they have my address, how soon is it whitelisted? Like, they run home and update their whitelist?

In at least one case, I suspect this set up is narcissistic. ‘People have to kow-tow to communicate with me.’

[glitchc]

Next time, write your email address on their card and give it back to them. If they really care about the information, they will follow up.

You shouldn't bother writing unsolicited emails with your advice to people who may not care. It's a waste of your valuable time.