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Re: [Asrg] 3. Requirements - Non Spam must go through

2003-07-08 00:19:39
At 05:23 PM 7/7/03 -0400, Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
Just ran across this quote from the John Gilmore of the EFF 
(http://www.politechbot.com/p-04927.html):

----snip----
After years of divisive discussions, a very similar pledge/oath/policy was 
what EFF was able to come to agreement on:

"Any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all non-spam messages reach 
their intended recipients."

Perhaps none of us has yet come up with a silver bullet to solve the 
problem of spam -- but it IS within our power to solve the problem of
overzealous anti-spam measures.
----snip----


Oh cool, sound bites.  Here's some from me;

"We must be sure the cure is better than the disease."

"Strive for 0 false positives and 0 false negatives, but remember TANSTAAFL."

"A new solution only needs to be better than the current one, not perfect."

"A flood of spam can drown out speech as easily as a tyrant if we don't
take action against it."


Seriously, too much spam can cause false positives.
I've deleted non-spam when filtering by hand, and I'm sure others
have too.  Not losing any non-spam messages is the goal, but
anything better than what we have currently is acceptable.
And as other have pointed out, if it's a tradeoff between
false positives and false negatives, it's up to the receiver 
to decide which is preferable.  Parents of young children 
might choose fewer false negatives, while a brokerage house
might choose fewer false positives, and that's as it should be.


Scott Nelson <scott(_at_)spamwolf(_dot_)com>


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