[Spambayes] Outlook plugin notes

[Meyer, Tony]

> * In her words, "When you filter to an online folder, SpamBayes
>   automatically disables filtering when you connect offline. What I
>   would like is that when I reconnect, SpamBayes should automatically
>   reenable filtering and run it against those folders. Now I 
>   have to do this manually."
I don't use any offline features, so I can't comment on this.

> * Apparently Outlook comes with a "Junk Email" folder.
Hmm...does anyone else's Outlook have a "Junk Email" folder?  Mine (2000 SR1) certainly didn't come with one.

> * She feels end-users need more education about what "spam-possible" means.
That would be a documentation issue, right?  And wasn't she a writer? ....

> * The sliders in the configuration window should have tick marks.
I guess I would agree with that.  I don't know who would even use the sliders when there's a text box just there, but ...

> * In the anti-spam dialog box:
>   o  Enable filtering checkbox should be below filters, since you have
>      to enable filtering before you can mess with the filters.
Agreed.

>   o  The filters box needs a scrollbar, for those with a ton of folders
>      to filter so you can see the text.
Or some other way of showing them all.  A scrollbar would make it ugly, wouldn't it?

> * Add a "spam column" in the anti-spam pulldown, so it's easy to add a
>   new "spam %" column in the current folder view.
Is it possible to customise the current view via code?  I wondered about doing this myself, since I seem to be constantly adding the column to new folders, but couldn't find any information about doing so (I must admit I didn't look that hard).

> * She says that the plugin is definitely not filtering public folders.
This might be an issue that has been resolved (I'm not sure what version the release had).  I'm checking this out on my system, but I don't have a lot of (mail) public folders (they're mostly calendars).  I'll have to wait until one of them gets mail.

> * She suggested deleting from public folders should go into a public
>   spam folder.
Perhaps there could be an option to have mail from each folder you filter:
(a) go to the same uncertain/spam folders [as now]
(b) go to individual uncertain/spam folders [one set per filtered folder]
This would be quite a big interface change, though.  Do people think it's worth it?

> * All outbound mail should be trained as ham
> I really like this last one.  I don't know if anyone's ever thought of
> training on outbound mail before.
Tim's post on this is in the November 2002 archive - "Bayes Training".  The arguments against were:
* Because some spam is 'from' yourself, this deteriates the helpfulness of the from header.
* It's easy to find enough ham; much more deteriates the ratio.

If a user saves their outgoing mail (in "Sent Items"), for example, then it's easy to train on that folder.  I do this.

=Tony Meyer