Reporting Spam - User Guide

[martind]

A quick question - is there a 'best practice'/user guide available for managing/reporting spam using SpamCop? If not is it something we should seek to write to help people using SpamCop to make best use of it?

I'm new to SpamCop and even though I know quite a bit about the Internet/Web/E-Mail my detailed knowledge of spam (and the art of reducing spam!) is limited. I'd be interested in cooperating with others to create a guide if people thought it would be useful.

[Miss Betsy]

I am not sure that I understand what kind of guide you want to create.

Most people use some sort of filtering if they get more than 10 spam per day, I would think. The easiest way to filter and to report is to use the spamcop email system.

Since there is more than one way of using spamcop (free reporting only; paid reporting only and the email options - if any), there are different ways of managing your spam and your reporting.

There is the question of munging vs no munging. About how spam comes in waves. Whether to use quick reporting or not, be a mole or not.

You won't get any consistent answers.

And using spamcop does not reduce the spam that comes to you. Reporting and blocking is a long term solution.

I have a feeling that this topic will be moved to the Lounge (even though it clearly says 'not for spam topics' until we can get the forum reorganized to better fit its use, anything that is not direct help with a user problem or with someone who is blocked is being moved to the Lounge for discussion. If you are looking for the answer to a problem, you don't want to be stumbling over a long discussion.

Miss Betsy

[spiralocean]

A best practices would be a great idea! Especially for those of us who are more visual learners.

The hardest part about spamcop is how to interpret the reports and knowing what to report and what not to report. There isn't a lot of documentation on deciphering headers, and the documentation that is there teaches as if you already know the material.

This is the number 1 problem with most of the books out on the market today. But I digress...

some examples would be nice to have also. And maybe something that goes into the how and why instead of these are the buttons to press to report spam.

¢¢

[ewv]

The O'Reilly book on fighting spam is very good for technical background, although it of course does not discuss how to use spamcop.

[martind]

hmm - not sure what to do next! I'll check out the O'Reilly book. I guess I was thinking of something quite simple to begin with. Perhaps bringing together, in a fairly short document, a 'how to' guide that would some of the questions that get most asked in these forums. This could then be added to as we gain a better understanding of what is useful to people using SpamCop. I don't want to reinvent the wheel - so if stuff already exists we should use that to start with.

I'm happy to continue the discsussion in this forum - alternatively in your interested in either directly (or in support) helping put a guide together give me an e-mail via the forum link and we can collaborate on putting an outline document together.

[ewv]

The O'Reilly book is reasonably technical, but very easy to read and very practical. It is worth reading.

There are also many shorter guidelines and FAQs on the web related to reporting spam. Spamcop may even have some links (I haven't looked in a while). These references should be searched for and read before any attempt to write something new.

[Wazoo]

Follow-up to ewv's suggestion ... http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/7.html

[Miss Betsy]

Perhaps bringing together, in a fairly short document, a 'how to' guide that would some of the questions that get most asked in these forums. This could then be added to as we gain a better understanding of what is useful to people using SpamCop. I don't want to reinvent the wheel - so if stuff already exists we should use that to start with.

That's what the FAQ are and put together the way you suggest. Someone is always going to update them ever since I can remember.

OTOH, a description of what the parser does in layman's language might be a good idea, and what the bl is and how admins use it (I am not quite sure of the technical side of that myself), of how to decide if the report checkboxes are accurate, and some definitions often used (like mung and lart) might be what you want. And perhaps a guide to the FAQ for the most frequent newbie questions.

Miss Betsy

[martind]

Thanks for all this - I'll do some more reading!