Re: SpamAssassin weightings - am I missing something?

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

Jonathan Matthews <jaycee.removeifnotspam@jaycee.uklinux.net> writes:

> I think we're talking at cross purposes - I meant "I find it strange 
> that the excuses cited should be taken as reasons for the mail to be 
> less likely to be spam", not any other reading.

Spamassassin default scores are set using a genetic algorithm[1].
Basically, there's a large corpus of spam and non-spam, the scores
are set at some default value, then modified by the algorithm until
they accurately categorize the spam in the test corpus.

So, yes, it may seem strange that those things are used more on
non-spam than spam, but in their tests, that's exactly the case.  I
get lots of legitimate email that has those phrases... random things
I have subscribed to.  

If you don't feel that score reflects the true spaminess on your
mail, that's the perfect reason to change it in your prefs.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://spamassassin.taint.org/faq/index.cgi?req=show&file=faq01.005.htp

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - I am the rocks.
Looking for a developer in St. Louis? http://web.springies.com/~ats/
Bleating and bubbling, he fell on his back with a scream!