Statistics

[cbeyer]

My average reporting time has been 1-2 hours for quite a while. Suddenly, it became 19 hours. I almost never report anything over 2 hours, unless it is a very annoying spam. Anyone else experience this? Not a big deal to me, I know what I am reporting, but it seemed strange.

[Merlyn]

Yes, the same happened to me a couple months ago but I really don't care what it says as long as the pondscum get reported. Remember you might have reported it within 2 hours but the timestamp on the received line could have said different. It's just a useless statistic now that you only have 24 hours to report. So everyone is < 24 hours

[StevenUnderwood]

This has come up often adn the only suggestion is to ignore the number. It was a good idea but the implementation has made the number useless.

Personally, I only see the number change at all when I have submitted a buch of messages to the full parser. The quick reporting odes not seem to affect the number at all.

My paid account is currently showing:

Welcome, Steven P. Underwood (Home).

Your average reporting time is: 12.3 days; Not bad.

It was sitting at a couple of hours for quite a while and then one day jumped to ~18 days if I remember properly. It has slowly gone down to it's current value, but I have not noticed it change in a couple of months now.

My free (work) account is currently showing:

Welcome, Steven Underwood (work).

Your average reporting time is: 12 hours; Pretty good!

Which is about right considering weekends that I don't report. I always do full reporting on this account of anything that gets past the Postini filters (a couple a week). I used to also report our role accounts but time has eliminated that diversion.

[Pressure Cooker]

This happened to me about 2 weeks ago - my average reporting time jumped from 7 hours to 8.9 days. As Spamcop won't accept reports older than a couple of days clearly this has to be a bug within Spamcop. It would be nice if they could fix it....

[Tommy]

So far mine has stayed at 4 hours. I remember how disappointed I was when mine went from 2 to 4 hours for no reason I could discern. Being accused of reporting ancient spam would be tough on my ego, for sure.

Maybe the number actually averages the sizes in enlargement spam, converting inches to hours.

[agsteele]

It is well documented that the average reporting time appears to be an entirely random number.

Mathematically speaking, of course, once you have been reporting for some time it is exceedingly difficult to reduce your average time.

Say you have submitted 10,000 reports and your average is now, say, 6 hours. It would take a further 10,000 reports with a time of 0 minutes to get your average down to 3 hours.

What nobody has been able to explain, however, is why the average time calculation can mysteriously increase without reason.

So the figures really are meaningless.

Andrew

[James Cridland]

I'm presuming that this figure is here to encourage us to report spam quickly.

However, it doesn't encourage us to report the "right" kind of spam to enable SpamCop to keep working properly.

I've always believed that if I only have time to make five spam reports that these should be spam that made it into my inbox, not spam that SpamCop has already spotted. If this belief is right, a better bet would be a "Yum, this spam is fresh" proportion, to encourage people to report quickly, and also encourage people to report un-noticed spam.

Better still would be to only give statistics on recent reports, to encourage people to keep reporting.

Welcome james007 in London.

You've reported 20% fresh spam in the last month. Pretty good!

I appreciate that the 'recent reports' statistic does require major re-programming; but the proportion calculation shouldn't be difficult, and help all SpamCop users.

[StevenUnderwood]

However, it doesn't encourage us to report the "right" kind of spam to enable SpamCop to keep working properly.

In order to "keep working properly", SpamCop needs ALL spam reported, whether it is already on the list or not. However, some people are so overwhelmed with spam that their time does not allow for reporting all their spam. Rather than give up completely, we encourage them to report "what they can" comfortably report.

If it is not already on the list, enough reports will get it on the list.

If it is already on the list, a report keeps it on the list that much longer because it is still a source of spam and the 48 hour timer is "reset". Without further reports, the address would drop off the list early, causing more people to receive the spam before being put back on the list.

[James Cridland]

In order to "keep working properly", SpamCop needs ALL spam reported, whether it is already on the list or not.  However, some people are so overwhelmed with spam that their time does not allow for reporting all their spam.  Rather than give up completely, we encourage them to report "what they can" comfortably report.

Better still: rather than give up completely, you should encourage them to report the most useful spams to SpamCop during that limited time.

Without further reports, the address would drop off the list early, causing more people to receive the spam before being put back on the list.

Okay, fair enough. But nothing in the current statistics helps this - indeed, you also have no way of knowing whether a spam you're reporting really is "fresh" before you've done it.

I always report spam in this order:

1. spam from my inbox: in full, including spamvertised sites

2. Newer spam from my held box

3. Older spam from my held box

Where I have limited time, #3 - or even #2 - gets just trashed. However, in terms of #1 - where the emailed reports are of some use - then it would seem they're the best emails to process first?

[BrianL]

So, having taken an hour to find and read this topic, I have an ignorant question.

With the introduction of average response time, I thought I was doing my civic duty to report only spam that was less than 1 hour old. It took me most of a year to get my average response time down to just one hour. I began frantically checking held mail every fifteen minutes or even more often - in an attempt to maximize my contribution to the anti-spam community. I wondered if my constant checking for held mail was actually slowing the system down. I never reported spam that arrived late at night, because I actually do have a life.

Recently I returned to the practice of reporting spam flagged by spamasassin, and spam arriving in my inbox, but only if it was still less than 8 hours old.

So, if I understood all the above correctly, all my worry was for naught, and to be the most help, I should resume reporting ALL spam, regardless of how it was flagged or perhaps even arrived in my inbox, or how old it is (assuming it is still < 24 hours)?

How many other dilligent ignoramuses like me will never know - because they don't look here? Maybe the prominently displayed statistic has been counterproductive, and should be removed?

OK, I had three questions. Sorry. Answer only the first if you like.

[StevenUnderwood]

The average report time is very inacurate. While it works for some people, for lots of others, it has no bearing on reality. My number on my paid account jumped from about 4 hours to 13 days about a year ago and is currently at 11+ days. Ignore it.

Since you "do have a life" report that which fits into that life. spam not listed already is probably the most important. The sort by age and report what you can. There are plenty of us out here that report ALL of our spam to cover for those without that kind of time.

I have been asking about either removing it or fixing it for some time now, but it has never become the top priority. Also, to fix it properly, the current stats should be dropped, at least on a request basis, or a button to reset the stats available.

[efa]

Why the "average reporting time" never show value less than 5 hour?

Why the "average reporting time" do not show fractional hour?

[turetzsr]

Why the "average reporting time" never show value less than 5 hour?

31973[/snapback]

...Hi, efa!

...Please see forum article Statistics, Average Reporting Time

Why the "average reporting time" do not show fractional hour?

31973[/snapback]

...That's just the way it is, I guess. Since the average reporting time seems to be pretty much meaningless, it really does not matter. <g>

[StevenUnderwood]

Why the "average reporting time" never show value less than 5 hour?

Why the "average reporting time" do not show fractional hour?

31973[/snapback]

I have mine at 2 hours for a while until the system jumped to ~20 days. Currently sitting as 9.6 days.

[agsteele]

I have mine at 2 hours for a while until the system jumped to ~20 days.  Currently sitting as 9.6 days.

31976[/snapback]

Of course the more spam you have previously reported, the harder it is to get the average down... I did, once, get a calculator out and work out how many reports I would need to submit with a reporting time of 1 hour to get my current average down to 3 hours from the current 6 hours. It was around 15,000. I have better things to do than sit over my held mail folder for 15,000 reports ensuring they were all submitted in under an hour.

Andrew

[efa]

I think that if "average reporting time" show fractional hour, it will help to understand what happen really.

Now that is rounded to integer hour, is really difficult to change his value, after a lot of report.

In my case it drop from 10 or more hour to 5 hour, and also reporting a lot of 0 hour old it never goes to 4 hour.

But I think it is become from 5,9 to 5,1

We need the fractional part of it.

I dont think that change the algoritm of calculus, need to reset the value.

I noted that also reporting spam immediately as they arrive, some of those are marked as old of 5-8 hour. Maybe it is a retard of smtp server forward?