From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com>
...
And in this particular instance 'by definition' means precisely that, it is
not used for emphasis. The definition of spam may be nebulous but false
positive is not.
It's unfortunate that is mistaken. "False positive" is not as frequently
abused as "spam," but it is often applied by bulk mail senders to any
filtering of their messages.
As others have pointed out, there is a genuine technical ambiguity in
"false positive." Is it RD/TOTAL or RD/SPAM? (for RD=rejected but
desired by recipient, TOTAL=total mail of all sorts whether rejected
or not, and SPAM=whatever that means). This distinction may not matter
if RD is nearly 0 or if TOTAL and SPAM are about the same, but in
those cases, you're unlikely to want to compute RD closer than order
of magnitude.
If you pick RD/SPAM as your definition, then it is as foggy as "spam."
We need clear and concise definitions for
- various sorts of mail that various people call "spam"
- opt-out
- unconfirmed opt-in
- super-duper-ultra-double-nasty-impossible-to-do-confirmed-opt-in
or whatever the bulk mail senders are currently calling the
only sane way to do opt-in
- consent
- false positive
- false negative
- filter
- DNS blacklist/blocklist
- to forge (as in header or envelope "forgery" with the dictionary
definition of "forgery")
- mismatach between envelope or header From: and reverse DNS name
of SMTP client (what many people mistakenly call "forgery")
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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