I'd like to be able to reset my average reporting time statistics.

I switched to quick reporting, and the tens of thousands of spams I reported over the years make it impossible for me see how I'm doing now.

Either a reset, or higher resolution (show hours and minutes), or have two average reporting time numbers, one being your lifetime average and the other being a running average for the last year or six month period. Allowing the user to specify a running averaging period in options would be nice, whether this replaced the currently displayed number or was a separately displayed second number.

Whatever approach is used, the point is to give the user the ablility to tell whether their reporting habits are trending their reporting time up or down? Currently, if you have much of a reporting history, you can't tell until you get lucky enought to see the number flip.

Nick

This is actually asked quite often, but I just searched the titles of the first 4 pages of topics and did not notice any that jumped out at me so I am leaving this topic in place.

That count works for many, but also does not work for many. My paid account currently shows me:
Welcome, Steven P. Underwood (Home).
Your average reporting time is: 8.8 days; Not bad.

Yes, DAYS, even though I report throughout the day and rarely have any report older than the 8 hours it takes me to sleep at night. I have reported many thousands of spam since that happened and every month or two it drops another 0.1.

The worst recorded time I have is from June 2004 at 17+ days: http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...post&p=9332

Another one of those items that never seems to get a good Title/Subject line used ... for instance, in this Forum section, the last 'great' Discussion about this can be found at Idea to help keep people reporting spam

And of course, there is also newsgroup traffic galore still available in the archives.

The problem with the average reporting time is that the maths is quite basic. Once you have submitted exceedingly large quantities of spam then it becomes harder and harder to affect the average reporting time. So really, the average time thing is pretty meaningless after awhile. It would make more sense to remove the information altogether but some folk like to see it :-)

Andrew

Steve:

O.K. That's an interesting difference? I get whole hours:

Since the system considers anything over 2 days to be too old to report, I expect you mis-typed and you are actually getting 8.8 hours? In that case, how do I get the decimal place to display? I'm feeling stupid if I missed that one, having been a member at the time that feature first appeared.

Andrew:

That's why I suggested a running average. Not as easy to do, since it requires remembering the reporting times of each individual report on a FIFO basis for the running interval. A less space consuming scheme would be to maintain an acumulated simple average for today (same math as the current number, but re-zeroed at midnight), in addition to, in FIFO order, the last, say, 99 daily values just before re-zeroing. For display, today's average, accumulated thus far, would be added to the sum of the FIF0 data and the result divided by 100. That would give an approximate running average for the last 100 days that is accurate within 1%.

In any event, it is more programming and server space. Probably not a reasonable expectation any time soon. Since the board gives no awards for best best reporting time, it seems to me that allowing someone to zero their average for display purposes would do no harm. The higher resolution I infer that Steve has will help me out, but I would add another decimal place for long time users, or else go to hh:mm format and resolution.

I suspect no typing error involved. My experience was spam reported as it arrived, yet in came one on a HotMail server with bad date stamps .. Boom! ... my 'average reporting time' jumped from 1 hour to 14 days ..... a couple of years later, and it's down to around 8 hours. Then again, I don't report like I used to either.

As suggested by many folks over the years, this is a useless number for most reporters.

As Wazoo states, this in NOT a typo. The Average Reporting time is useless for many people for various reasons. I am not the only one to experiencethis type of problem.

IMHO, it was added with good intentions for an additional incentive to report spam promptly, but after it was added, the problems (as detailed in other posts) came up and it was decided that the additional programming and server space were not worth the result. Why it was not deleted is anyone's guess.

I don't see any mention of a FAQ or Wiki entry (but I haven't looked). Perhaps that would be a good idea since the topic titles vary considerably.

Miss Betsy

QUOTE

Currently, if you have much of a reporting history, you can't tell until you get lucky enought to see the number flip.

QUOTE

I switched to quick reporting, and the tens of thousands of spams I reported over the years make it impossible for me see how I'm doing now.

Amen. Lots of good ideas in this thread. Reset button (why should SpamCop be averse to this?). 2nd, shorter-term average. More decimal places.

QUOTE

And of course, there is also newsgroup traffic galore

That's true. It's been a popular issue that's been going on for years. But the process hasn't changed a wit. So pronouncing that this issue has been discussed before a million times does nothing to further any improvement.

And until there's improvement, you can expect to see intelligent people bringing up the subject again and again.

Aside from contributing to the "good side of The Force," there's not a lot to keep a person spending time dealing with this slimy spam. The Average Reporting Time is one of the few mechanisms that exist to make this slightly interesting -- to track our own performance. But the way it is now, it doesn't help.

For at least a year, I've been submitting spam that's only 0 hours old, and occasionally 1 hour. Yet, my Average won't go below 3 hours. Might drop to "2" tomorrow. Or maybe the sytem is broke? More decimal places would help to make the determination. I've heard it said that computers are good at that kind of thing. Give me a couple dozen decimal places, and I'll take care of the rounding-off, myself, no problem.

...Just guessing but perhaps because it just isn't important enough -- not a core feature of the product. The important stuff is keeping up with all the spammer tricks to make sure the SpamCop parser works well....Again, just guessing but I don't think that was the point; I believe the point was that if the SpamCop programmer(s) thought this was worth doing, he/she/they would have already done it, so it is highly unlikely that further "bringing up [of] the subject again and again" is almost certainly would be in vain.

Did you perhaps mean "it is highly likely" rather than "unlikely"? I'd say that it's highly unlikely that any feature requests will get acted upon...period. Someone want to give a list of those that have actually gotten anyone's attention, without extreme efforts on the part of Wazoo?

DT

You could go through this forum as easily as anyone and determine the answer. My guess is that very few of them have been implemented since the IronPort purchase. The average reporting time that is being complained about here was the result of a sugestion for more incentive for reporters.

...Yes, thanks! I edited my post accordingly.

Too funny ... I ran someone else's spam (from the newsgroup) to show the difference between a MailHost Configured Reporting Account and on that wasn't .... I then cancelled the report, as all I wanted was the Tracking URL of the parse .... so, no reports sent, but my "average reporting time" jumped from the 8 hours it's been at for a couple of years to a new value of 11 hours .... actual 'age' of the spam in questin was less than two hours old .....

Tell me again that this number is worth anything at all ....

Let's accept as an axiom that The Number isn't worth anything at all.

In that case, it might as well be removed.

(That is an attempt at reverse psychology.)

I think The Number is a recipreversexclusion - and evidently the SC development team is waiting for it to intersect with a Someone Else's Problem Field (as it must when all possible numbers have been fruitlessly proposed as the "correct" number). But maybe that's just me.

I normally report spam within a few minutes of receipt, or not at all. My average reporting time has been "less than an hour". Lately, though, it has been going up. First it was one hour - now it's two hours. None of my reports has been over 15 minutes old. What's the story?

Moderator Edit: Was posted into Discussions & Observations > Geek/Tech Things > Software Issues
I used the built-in search tool, looking for "average reporting time" .... selected this most recent Topic to merge this 'new' post into .... noting there are several others with much more discussion, much older, etc. etc.

PM sent to advise of the move ...

If you read this thread, you will likely find this information...

For some people, that number works fine. However, for many of us at one point or another, it has ceased to be of any use. I report, at most, 8 hours from being received (overnight). My screen currently shows: Welcome, Steven P. Underwood (Home). Your average reporting time is: 8.5 days; Not bad.

How it got to 8 days while only being able to report spams 2 (originally 3) days old, I will never know.

Dear kdq,

Gee, I remember when my Average Reporting Time said "less than an hour."

You refreshed my memory. My Average Reporting Time was accurate for at least a few hundred spam reports. Then, it was unable to continue reliably.

A quick fix would be to provide a button to "Reset" the Average Reporting Time. If they can't be bothered to fix the Average Reporting Time, at least they could provide a clicker so we could reset ours to Null when it gets absurd.

Interesting how your Average Reporting Time crept up, apparently just because the Average Reporting Time function can only handle "so many" data points.

Me too. Must be a year that I've been only submitting spams "0 hours old" for at least a year, but I can't get my Average Reporting Time to drop below 3 hours. Mine is due for a reset.

-N-

What may be better than just outright resetting is converting the average report time into, say, a 100 report moving average.

Report count and/or using a time instead of a report count is also a good alternative...

This would keep the lifetime average more relevant as time progresses without getting a skewed result.

All good ideas until you think about implementation (the storage required for each reporter) and what the intent of tracking the average reporting time was.

This requires storing 100 times, plus pointers. For some reporters it would represent the average time for the last month or more, for others the last 12 hrs depending on the level of reporting.

Not sure what you mean here. "Using a time instead" of what? The time used now?

Assuming correct calculation, which may be at issue, skewed how? A change to a moving average or a report count isn't a lifetime average. Different numbers represent different things. Which calculation is appropriate does depend on what intent IronPost had when the number was included.

just to put my .02 in

It really doesn't matter. If it is older than a certain amount of time it cannot be reported. As long a some kind of report gets in and causes the spamming pondscum a little inconvenience then I don't care how long it takes. I think it should be removed.

That took a while to sink in. Finally, I realize, "Good point!"

...And my $0.02: considering how old this request now is, I consider it a waste of time to discuss it any further (but that's just my view; I'm not inclined to take any action to actually stop any further discussion of this topic, such as closing it). Either the SpamCop programmers have this on their list of things to "fix" or they don't. There's not much is users can do about it.

Evidently the simple equation (sum of ages on reporting)/(total reports) gets broken on occasion by errors in either/both the numerator and/or denominator. That skews the result which is intended to be the simple average of reporting time. Uncharacteristic input (such as an atypically old report) also skews the result although that should generally be a minor effect, given the restriction on the age of reports accepted for processing and the large, "lifetime", size of the denominator. But we know something occasionally goes astray and "impossible" results ensue. And we know the age on reporting, as seen during the parse, is variable depending on whether mailhosting is set up or not - which raises the whole question of "age".

The figure/"statistic" that would (logically) be of significance to Cisco/IronPort/SpamCop is the total number of reports submitted, it underlies the whole "user reporting" adjunct to the SCbl operation and represents the "product differentiation" of the SCbl. Don, on at least one occasion (IIRC), has demonstrated "here" the ability to cite this figure in relation to an individual reporter. Whatever the intention behind providing the users with the average reporting time it was, I think, enabled by the retention of this (denominator) factor as a matter of SC's vital concern.

IF (big supposition) the statistic is available, requests by reporters to provide it routinely (whether as well as or in place of the average reporting time) have been ignored. If Cisco/IronPort/SpamCop had any intention of restoring the credibility of the average reporting time figure they would provide it to eliminate or confirm that factor as the the principal problem in the equation. The fact they do not, to extend the chain of supposition, indicates to me that they probably do not wish to have it so closely scruitinized. Which would be bad news for Cisco/IronPort top management who probably rely to some extent on the accuracy of its aggregate value. (Yes, I know I'm cruel, Wazoo reminded me of that ages ago but it was not news even then.)

A neat way to sideline the accuracy issue would, indeed, be to restrict the average reporting time calculation - say to the 90 day period of user reporting history. Yes, this would represent a formidable processing overhead, truly, it would no longer be a "lifetime" measure - but it would reflect "current" user and system processing performance which might be at least as relevant to a greater number of reporters, especially given that the "long count" has little/no credibility in their eyes. Any errors would fairly quickly work their way through the count to be excreted into oblivion after (say) 90 days. If any such errors might be comparatively magnified, because of the comparatively low denominator, they will at least be highly visible - giving the opportunity for identification of the cause(s). But I think they're probably quite infrequent on any sensible timescale.

I'm surprised SC hasn't hit on this "solution" already, and implemented it with gleeful cries. I can only suppose my chain of supposition is faulty somewhere. Or the engineering staff have more pressing concerns (where's the emoticon for "just a touch ironic"?). Or both IMUO - in my uninformed opinion.

Let me elaborate.

new_average = old_average * (1 - x) + new_reporting_time * x

Where X is how much the latest report.

The other reports' weights would decay exponentially.

X can be adjusted based on how many reports we have sent so far...and could cap at 1/100th.

Slewing X down harmonically would do the same thing as keeping track of all the parts manually. It's just that the previous average gets a bigger and bigger weight vs. the new report, so everything balances out.

"capping" the X factor at, say, 1/100th would give each new report a minimum weight in the new running average, and over time, new trends would weigh out the old stuff.

I was a bit surprized last week (maybe a week prior?) to see my number come down to 10 hours. Shortlived as it turns out. I just reported a attempted spam to the mailing-list/newsgroup archive .... within 10 minutes of receipt .. parse showed "0 hours old" .... my new reporting time is now showing as 39 hours. One just has to be amazed at the accuracy involved with the generation of this statistic.

Have not looked at mine in a while:

Welcome, Steven Underwood (work).
Your average reporting time is: 10 hours; Pretty good!

Welcome, Steven P. Underwood (Home).
Your average reporting time is: 7.5 days; Not bad.

Actually the last thing I want to see is my average reporting time. I do not understand why it is needed. Report the spam and forget it. Be happy as long as you report it.

Yet many do. 'Twould indeed be better to scap it if it cannot be fixed, it is a bad look when it fails (calling into doubt other competencies) though it seems to function well enough for the silent majority. Not exactly the grapes of wrath, more like the cumquat of dicscontent (yes, yes, I use the OED spelling for that fruit and nanny filters be d*mned) but a needless distraction in any terms. Or fix it.

I'd like to reset mine too. I have been diligent at keeping my average reporting time at 2 hours, by making sure I never report any spam more than 3 hours old.

Suddenly, today, my average reporting time shows 25 hours! How is that possible, given that 24 hours is the maximum age for reporting spam?

It would be trivial to implement an exponential moving average to show the average reporting time for the last N reports:

N = number of reports to average = 300 or so.
w = weighting factor = 2/(N+1)
t = age of spam in current report
avg = most recent calculated average (this is the only value that needs to be stored)

Then new average reporting time = w*t + (1-w)*avg

This approximates a simple moving average calculated as the sum of the last N ages divided by N. The advantage with an exponential average, however, is that you need to store ONLY the last calculated value, nothing else.

Is the average reporting time used for anything, such as weighting the importance of certain reports over others?

-Alex

Mostly likely not, and that's also the likelihood of getting anyone to fix this long-discussed problem, sorry to say.

DT

hello,

somehow, yesterday, my reporting time sent from 1 hour to 8.1 days.
i know it is stupid, but i like my 1 hour reporting time.

is there anyone that can correct this please???

TIA.

Sadly, no. It is well documented that the average reporting time appears to have little correlation with fact. Some users have seen the opposite to your experience but pretty much everyone who has taken any interest in the figure has come to realise that it is virtually meaningless.

There is an old thread on this topic which I can't find just now but I'm sure someone else will point you to it in due course. In fact an admin may well merge this thread with the older one.

Andrew

As agsteele suggested, this 'new' Topic has been merged into one of the latest existing Topics on the same subject. PM sent to advise of this action.

thank you..

i was very proud of my time..

it is ok i guess.

i will just hammer away to get it back down.