[Spambayes] Getting rid of max_spamprob and min_spamprob

Tim Peters tim.one@comcast.net
Mon, 16 Sep 2002 19:18:25 -0400


[Greg Ward]
> Ahh, OK.  I missed that detail.  The ability to admit uncertainty would
> definitely be a nice feature -- the highly bipolar distribution of spam
> scores is alluring at first, until you realize that most FPs score the
> same as real spam, and most FNs score the same as regular mail.

I'm not sure it would be a nice feature.  It would introduce two new
measures, both of which carry their own headaches:

    the percentage of ham tagged "unsure"
    the percentage of spam tagged "unsure"

In addition, there will still be non-zero false negative and false positive
rates, due to ham that scores high for spamness under both measures, and
similarly spam scoring high for hamness under both measures.

You've done an admirable job of dodging this issue <wink>, but it won't go
away:  you have to decide on concrete non-zero f-p and f-n rates that are
acceptable.

after-that-it's-just-a-small-matter-of-engineering-ly y'rs  - tim