On Sun, 28 Dec 2003, Bob Proulx stated: >> My publication is double-opted in by 15,000 families with children with >> autism.
... but not by mine, nor will it be. I prefer to read newsletters written by people who reasearch before they sound off. > Statements such as that during an introduction of two parties rarely > leads the other party to be kindly disposed to helping you. Well, for all I know, Lenny Schafer may be autistic. This is generally a good excuse for being useless at human->human communication. :) (However, it's not a terribly good one given that even the autistic can follow a general rule like `calm down before posting'. Hell, I've got Asperger's and this email is perfectly normal. At least, I hope it is.) >> False positives are intolerable and commercial products that allow them >> should be outlawed as much as spam should be. > > First, spamassassin is not a commercial product. *wince* SpamAssassin is not distributed as a commercial product from <http://www.spamassassin.org/>. However, some companies *are* distributing it as a commercial product (NAI, for one). So this statement isn't correct (and further intensifies the belief among some of the misguided masses that free/open source software cannot be commercial). What it's not is proprietary, in the specialized sense of that term used by free software advocates (not the common English meaning). > Second, it is not inflicted upon people without their knowledge. > People who find spam intolerable are downloading and installing > spamassassin in order to tag messages as likely spam. If someone is > using spamassassin then they have "opted-in" by installing it. They > may then customize it further. No one is forcing them to use it. More precisely: *we* are not forcing them to use it. Some ISPs may be, but that's the fault of those ISPs: we recommend strongly that ISPs tell the users that it's there, what it's doing, how to control it, and provide ways to turn it off. > Third, you say "outlaw" as if technical problems can be solved through > enactments of legislature by the governing body. Worse: his mail assumes that there is a single governing body that controls all things, and that governing body is the US Congress. (Another reason for me not to subscribe to his newsletter: health and disability law in the UK is very different from that in the US, with its own demented and ridiculous problems, but that mail makes me wonder if he even knows that the UK exists... :( ) > As they say, build > a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. But > outlawing mice? Adapted into .sig-fodder, thanks. :) > Bayesian classification as implemented by spamassassin is a personal > learning algorithm. It learns by what the person tells it. It is not > suitable for a large group to use as a group. An ISP would not > implement a single database for multiple users. It just does not work > that way. Therefore it can be concluded that you are talking about a > single user who is instructing spamassassin with conflicting data. Well, I'm sure some ISPs *do* activate it for groups, because I remember questions flying past on this list about configuring it that way. But they shouldn't. :) >> * 0.9 -- BODY: No such thing as a free lunch (3) >> * 0.5 -- BODY: No Fees >> * 0.5 -- BODY: Possible porn - Hot, Nasty, Wild, Young >> * 0.1 -- BODY: HTML link text says "click here" To be honest, these are not indicative of a problem in the newsletter: SA is misfiring here. Only it's not a misfire because added together these only come to a score of 2.0, which is well below the 5.0 spam threshold. >> * 0.2 -- BODY: HTML contains unsafe auto-executing code *boggle* -- As they say, build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. But nobody ever got anywhere outlawing mice. ------------------------------------------------------- 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
