As far as I know the filters never did train themselves. Tweaks to the filters were done manually back in the old days by list staff. I'm not sure that is being done any longer since there are so few staff working on lists. I've not seen any evidence of filters "learning" to exclude spam by content or subject when we report it. I'm not saying NOT to report it if you want to...but I certainly am not going to change my spam settings for non-subscriber mail just so that I can view and report it when otherwise I don't have to see it at all. Joan In a message dated 7/31/2012 10:39:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, popsjackson@charter.net writes: This is a valid question, but I am not sure there is a good answer. It seems that the filters are very slow to learn as I have seen the same messages repeatedly when I had mine set for "Hold" and despaired of ever seeing any progress. The other problem I have seen is that, even if the filters are learning by way of our selecting "This is spam" the spammers are constantly sending new messages which require the filters to be constantly re-trained. It is similar to the problem of virus-laden emails. Even as our various anti-virus programs are learning the new viruses that are out there, the creators are constantly coming up with new strains so the process gets more and more complicated. We just all do the best we can with the time and resources we have available to us. Jim

Joan, I think you have hit it square on. My understanding is that there are far too few paid workers (as in many other industries these days) and so no one has the time to devote to "non critical" issues. The critical ones seem to have to be categorized by degree of necessity. We just live with the way things are and find enjoyment in it as we can. And I do find a great deal of enjoyment in my Rootsweb involvement. I am passionate about my Rootsweb involvement and sometimes it shows when I should just keep quiet. Jim From: JYoung6180@aol.com [mailto:JYoung6180@aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 1:04 AM To: popsjackson@charter.net; ian_marr@bigpond.net.au; Listowners@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LO] Pending Lists & Discard As far as I know the filters never did train themselves. Tweaks to the filters were done manually back in the old days by list staff. I'm not sure that is being done any longer since there are so few staff working on lists. I've not seen any evidence of filters "learning" to exclude spam by content or subject when we report it. I'm not saying NOT to report it if you want to...but I certainly am not going to change my spam settings for non-subscriber mail just so that I can view and report it when otherwise I don't have to see it at all. Joan In a message dated 7/31/2012 10:39:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, popsjackson@charter.net writes: This is a valid question, but I am not sure there is a good answer. It seems that the filters are very slow to learn as I have seen the same messages repeatedly when I had mine set for "Hold" and despaired of ever seeing any progress. The other problem I have seen is that, even if the filters are learning by way of our selecting "This is spam" the spammers are constantly sending new messages which require the filters to be constantly re-trained. It is similar to the problem of virus-laden emails. Even as our various anti-virus programs are learning the new viruses that are out there, the creators are constantly coming up with new strains so the process gets more and more complicated. We just all do the best we can with the time and resources we have available to us. Jim