OT Re: [Nottingham] Re: Tux Games mail is still unread

[Mike Cardwell]

On Tue, 25 May 2004, Simon Huggins wrote:

>> I wrote a similar system my self, and it has been very very effective.
>> Any email that isn't from someone on my whitelist is filtered through
>> spamassassin. Any emails that spamassasin rejects gets filtered into a
>> separate mailbox, and the sender is sent an email telling them how to
>> add themselves to my whitelist so I will get their email. I go weeks
>> without getting a single spam email sometimes.
> That sort of whitelisting will allow viruses through unfettered unless
> you do some scanning before trusting your whitelist.

I read my email with pine. That isn't a problem.

>> Certainly solved something for me...
> And how often do you go through the mails that people don't bother
> authorising?

I probably glance over my spam mailbox for about 30 seconds once a week to
check that nothing legitimate has been blocked.

> How do you know that someone random hasn't sent you a message that you
> would have been interested in that you've just discarded?

See above. It's never happened....

> I guess coupling it with spamassassin is less of a risk than just
> trusting a whitelist but I still find the penalty on the senders of mail
> unacceptable.

The sender only receives an email if they haven't emailed me previously,
and if spamassassin blocks them. It is very very rare that anyone has to
manually add themselves to my white list. Probably only happened 5/6 times
in the 6 or so months I've been running it, and I get a fair amount of
email each day. The "penalty" you are refering to, if it's a penalty at
all, is insignificant compared to the gains.
I find it quite strange that you are so adamant that there are 0 gains by
using such a system when there blatently are...

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