[Spambayes] Obvious Spam Missed...

Peter N. Kipe pkipe at corpdatasys.com
Tue Sep 16 12:46:22 EDT 2003


To all,

I've had SpamBayes installed for over a month now, and while it IS helping,
I'm not seeing the results I was expecting.  I installed
SpamBayes-Outlook-Setup-006.exe dated 8-6-2003, size 3,391,736 bytes.  I'm
using Outlook 2002 SP2 on WinXP Pro.  My e-mail is served by my ISP's POP3
server.

I receive 100-200 spams per day, depending upon the day.  In a typical heavy
spam day, SpamBayes identifies about 10 of those as certain spam, and about
60% of the rest as probable spam.  What I'm saying is that probably 30% or
so remains in my inbox for me to delete as spam.  Examples of the kind of
spam I'm referring to are "3 in 1 SmartMini Cam Blowout!!!", "you've never
seen amateurs do this", and "Pkipe Quality Valiumm, prozac, ambien.ccrvu?
Nrlt."  These all score in the 30-40 range.  I've deleted over 3500 items as
spam, and recovered only about 25 from spam.

When I receive new mail, I first look at the number of unread items in my
spam folder.  If there are any, I switch to that folder and verify that the
new items are in fact spam, then mark them as "read".  Next, I look at my
probable spam folder to make sure that everything in it is spam.  If so, I
select all items, mark them as "read", then click the SpamBayes "Delete as
Spam" button.  Finally, I look at unread items in my inbox to see if any are
spam.  I select all spam I find, then mark them as "read", and click "Delete
as Spam".  The bottom line is that I'm trying to use the "read" flag to
highlight new items, and turn the flag off after items have been reviewed.

Question:  Is there some aspect of the approach I'm using that might cause
SpamBayes not to "learn" what I consider to be spam, or does it sound like
SpamBayes is essentially working as it should be?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Peter Kipe


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