Re: [vox-tech] bogofilter question

[Henry House <hajhouse@houseagMAPS.com>]

På tisdag, 14 oktober 2003, skrev p@dirac.org:
[...]
> the bogofilter docs recommend that i should do this at about 10,000
> emails.  a bogofilter website (one of the developers) said this number
> should be more like 20,000.

That is rather extreme. I found that matching because really good after 1000
messages.

> that's absurd.  i've only seen a false positive once or twice, when
> i first started to use bogofilter.  false negatives are rare.  maybe one
> or two a week.
> 
> are there any more experienced bogofilter people out there who thought
> about this issue?  if so, what was your conclusion?  i can't see doing
> this for much past 1000 emails in each ham/spam bin.

I think 1000 mails is plenty, unless you are obsessed with never getting a
false positive. LWN.net did a study on this and came to a similar conclusion
(sorry, i don't have the url handy.)

> lastly, the docs recommend not to share databases with other people
> because the whole point is to tailor bogofilter for the type of spam and
> ham that arrives in YOUR inbox.  not other people's inboxes.  otherwise,
> you might as well use a lexical analyzer like spamcop.  are there any
> experienced bogofilter users here that have thought about this issue?  i
> suspect the docs may overstate this claim.  we all get offered XXX
> videos, penis enlargements and international bank transfers.  but then
> again, i'm still vaguely a bogofilter newbie, so i'd like some guidance
> if anybody has actually thought about this issue.

I used to discount this, but I am starting to agree that sharing is bad since
I am now getting degraded matching quality (spams getting through when they
should not) with a shared database.

-- 
Henry House
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