[Spambayes] (no subject)

[Tim Peters]

[David Smith]
> I have just downloaded and installed Spambayes 008.1.  I am using it
> in Outlook 2003 (11.5608.5703), running in Windows XP Pro SP1.  I
> want to train it from scratch; I have no spam to offer it, so I am
> relying on it moving all incoming mail to 'Unsure' and then I take it
> from there.
>
> The first two e-mails to arrive went to 'Unsure'.  Now, they are all
> staying in 'Inbox'.  Why?

Why not?  Out of the box, SpamBayes has no preconceived notions of what ham
and spam mean.  You've now taught it that two things are ham, but that
nothing is spam.  That's now its *entire* knowledge of your world.  For
example, the simple fact that the messages you trained it on were addressed
to you have so far taught it that "message addressed to David" is a 100%
reliable indicator of ham.  Until you teach it that *something* is spam,
it's going to continue believing that, so every message addressed it to is
going to look hammy.  OTOH, if you get so little spam that you can't find
any to train on, maybe you should just leave SpamBayes uninstalled <wink>.