Hi Martin, Thanks for the response.
My main problem is that I'm struggling to build a conceptual model in my head of how SA is working and where responsibility is delegated between administrator settings and user settings. I am seeing the filtering work - but I'm confused because I don't know if it's largely the result of some clever default mode of installation, or if it's because of the 200 or so ham and spam messages I've entered, or both. The documentation is maddeningly vague on these issues. I'm frustrated because I'm not getting unambiguous answers to my questions :-) Again, if I (as an end user) didn't use sa-learn at all, would Bayesian filtering occur on my incoming email (presumeably because of a default or generic mode of operation - in which case my original question of how can I differentiate between user and generic effectiveness applies!)? The reason why I dwell on this is because, as an administrator, I can envision where some Bayesian filtering might occur by default, but that the sa-learn tool might allow the user to fine-tune it for themselves. Or, I could envision a scenario where it won't occur for the end user unless they actively use sa-learn - in which case I assume that the basic pattern matching searches on key phrases (e.g. Adult, Teen etc.) is sufficient to provide some useful filtering. TIA for responses. PH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Radford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "pjh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Martin Radford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "pjh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 4:45 PM Subject: Re: [SAtalk] user vs local prefs > At Tue Dec 30 23:24:01 2003, pjh wrote: > > > > Is it true then, that if I do not use sa-learn, that > > no Bayesian filtering occurs? > > You won't get bayesian filtering until the bayes database has learned > 200 spam and 200 ham messages. Ideally, the user teaches bayes ham > and spam using sa-learn to feed it; however, SA will auto-learn > messages if their score is sufficiently high (for spam) or > sufficiently low (for ham). To avoid auto-learning incorrectly, there > is a significant margin above and below 5.0 within which it won't > auto-learn messages (so, for example, it won't auto-learn a spam that > scores 4.9 as ham). > > You can disable auto-learning via the config files, and you can > disable bayes too. But both are enabled by default. > > If you're not seeing BAYES_xx entries yet, it's possible you haven't > learned enough ham or spam, or alternatively that you haven't got > appropriate database support available on your system (you need the > Perl DB_File module). > > Martin > -- > Martin Radford | "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] | men just upload their important stuff -o) > Registered Linux user #9257 | on ftp and let the rest of the world /\\ > - see http://counter.li.org | mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds _\_V ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials. Become an expert in LINUX or just sharpen your skills. Sign up for IBM's Free Linux Tutorials. Learn everything from the bash shell to sys admin. Click now! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1278&alloc_id=3371&op=click _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
