[Spambayes] Ham:Spam ratio

[dickk at paragonconstructioninc.com]

Tony

Thanks for the good info.

>
>    Training on mistakes only - i.e. get rid of your existing
>  training data,
>  so that everything is unsure (or if you're using the plug-in and there's
>  still the 5+5 minimum, then go down to that).
>
>    Then train on all mail classified as unsure, all good mail
>  classified as
>  spam, and all spam classified as good mail.
>
>    Your database will stay small, and you'll end up with pretty
>  good results,
>  fairly quickly.  For the most part, the ratio tends to stay roughly even
>  here, too, for various reasons.
>

Ok, using OL2k, I've rebuilt the database with 5+5.  Now I want to be clear
on what I should do with the Suspects.  I have a suspect now with a score of
47% (limits are 80 and 15).  If I understand, I should move this message to
deleted items and NOT use the Delete As Spam button.  Only use the buttons
when ham ends up in Junk or when Spam ends up in Inbox.

>  You'll probably find it's better to train *less spam* than *more ham*.

Based on that, maybe I should also "Recover From Spam" and ham that ends up
in Suspects because I'm likely to get way more spam in my Inbox than ham in
my Junk (due to the big difference in my actual ham:spam ratio).

I'm sorry I require so much hand-holding, but I appreciate your time.

Dick