[Spambayes] humble suggestion

[Tim Peters]

[Daimon Sweeney]
> I just saw your site, and am delighted to see the Bayesian approach
> evolving. I have only one hesitation about the presentation, and that is
> linguistic and philosophical.
>
> There are many people to whom the word "ham" may be viscerally offensive,
> such as Jews, Hindus, and vegetarians. What is that, a couple of billion
> people? I realize this is hard for those who enjoy ham to realize, but
> substitute "termite grubs" or even "tofu" for "ham" and you may realize a
> similar effect. Termite grubs are prized delicacies in some places.
>
> Identifying "ham" and "desirable" for these people simply doesn't work
> conceptually, so it creates a reflexive barrier to your idea
> regardless of the intellectual merit.

I don't worry about it.  This is the second message over the life of this
project from someone worried about someone *else* getting offended, but we
still haven't heard from someone who actually is offended.  Current
spambayes users certainly include people from all the groups you mentioned.
Most people have *some* sense of humor.

For those who don't, the source code is free for the taking, and someone who
cares enough is welcome to release a derivative work from which all
thought-to-be potentially offensive phrases have been purged.  They should
probably note that SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods
Corporation too -- I've heard that some people even like the stuff <wink>.