Junk Email Feature

[Guest]

I have a couple of questions about junk email filtering in Outlook 2003.

1. How can I "Add Sender to Blocked Senders List" for multiple messages? Why
only one at a time?

2. How come all I can do is add specific email addresses to a "blocked
senders" list? If Outlook 2003 has junk email-filtering algorithms, how come
any messes I "mark as junk" (to use an informal phrase) are not examined and
their features added to these algorithms? If Outlook 2003 is incapable of
this, then what good is its junk email-filtering in the first place?

So far the only answers I've seen to my #1 are: "What version?" (even when
someone states it's Outlook 2003 they're asking about) and "Can't be done."
Sorry, but while this answers "how," it does not answer "why."

As for #2, I haven't seen anything which gives me any explanation of what
Outlook 2003's spam filtering is or what it's supposed to do ... nothing at
all.

If Outlook 2003 doesn't have any true junk email-analysis algorithms (just
email address filters), when will it? Is this something MS is working on, or
are they content to leave it out?

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have a couple of questions about junk email filtering in Outlook
2003.

1. How can I "Add Sender to Blocked Senders List" for multiple
messages? Why only one at a time?

Outlook cannot do that. Only one at a time because that's the way Outlook
was written. Besides, it's a ledd-than-ideal way to handle junk senders
because the address is rarely the same twice in a row.

2. How come all I can do is add specific email addresses to a "blocked
senders" list? If Outlook 2003 has junk email-filtering algorithms,
how come any messes I "mark as junk" (to use an informal phrase) are
not examined and their features added to these algorithms? If Outlook
2003 is incapable of this, then what good is its junk email-filtering
in the first place?

Some people would agree that it's not all that good and, instead, use
add-ons like http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

So far the only answers I've seen to my #1 are: "What version?" (even
when someone states it's Outlook 2003 they're asking about) and
"Can't be done." Sorry, but while this answers "how," it does not
answer "why."

For the "why" you'd have to speak with the developers and none of them ever
read this newsgroup.

As for #2, I haven't seen anything which gives me any explanation of
what Outlook 2003's spam filtering is or what it's supposed to do ...
nothing at all.

What it's supposed to do is eliminate the most common junk mail while
maintaining the simplest interface it can for the "stupid" people who use
it. Microsoft seems to like taing decision-making away from people who use
its products.

If Outlook 2003 doesn't have any true junk email-analysis algorithms
(just email address filters), when will it? Is this something MS is
working on, or are they content to leave it out?

It does have a bayesian filter, but it's not trainable by the end user.
That's why MS publishes periodic updates for the filter. They can train it,
but you can't.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Outlook cannot do that. Only one at a time because that's the way
Outlook was written. Besides, it's a ledd-than-ideal way to handle
junk senders because the address is rarely the same twice in a row.

Make that "less-than-ideal"