I have twice tried to unlock my address so that members can e-mail me but it remains hidden...

Add all Hotmail accounts to the list of invalid emails.  Hotmail blocks and deletes email at the server level now and therefore is no longer a reliable email service.  If you have Hotmail, you will need to change to another service that takes email delivery seriously.  You will likely not be able to register here using Hotmail.  I can't even email Hotmail users directly anymore.

Fisher,

Good to hear you are getting your mail.  Not sure why.  Have had several Hotmail users in the last week that cannot receive mail.  Just gets bounced back.  Server level filtering deletes your mail before it ever even reaches your spam folder or anything else you can see.  In the quest to reduce spam, many servers are doing this.  In all cases it renders email unreliable.  Users should have the choice and be able to see what has been tagged as spam.

Had a Verizon user who has bee trying to register on the forums for weeks.  He had to get a Yahoo account to be able to receive mail.  Verizon is another one that does this.

Unfortunately, these solutions to spam are rendering the entire email system undependable.  The spammers win I guess.

Maybe if enough customers know about this practice and demand that it stop, it will.

Part of the problem is email cloaking.  Spammers cloak their garbage as coming from legitimate sources.  Then the legitimate sources get blocked.  I have been getting spam lately from myself so that is part of the issue.  My email has been used to cloak.  Nothing that can be done about that.  That's just one reason why spam filters are not effective and always block legitimate mail.  When it is deleted before you see it, you can't get much of your legitimate mail.