Creating a Reporting "Strategy"

[xzr1tv]

II have been doing reporting now for about 10 months. Sometimes full reporting, sometimes regular reporting. With the 2-day/48-hour rule, I was going to create a 'strategy' for myself to prioritize what to report and when.

I will admit I report spam for 2 reasons: A) To help keep my box clear, but also I take delight in 'piling on' to help shut turkeys down!

That said...

This philosophy I am using now is this:

Based on:

SpamAssassin=5

All Blacklists set on

Process

1) Look at the Held Mail

2) If it is blocked by BL.SPAMCOP.NET, use quick reporting.

3) If NOT, use full reporing..

Any holes in this?

Suggest a different approach?

[Wazoo]

Have you yet looked at the "How I use SpamCop" entry in the FAQ here? Should this posting actually have been entered into that Topic?

[xzr1tv]

Have you yet looked at the "How I use SpamCop" entry in the FAQ here?  Should this posting actually have been entered into that Topic?

20354[/snapback]

First, I guess I am confused as to where things are to be posted!

The topic descriptor for this forum states

"This forum is for discussion of pretty much anything except SpamCop and spam fighting. "

The topic descriptor for Spamcop Help Formum begins with:

"A forum to help users with the SpamCop Reporting System....... "

But I do see this forum has the SPAMCOP FAQ's in it ...

As Spock says "This does not compute...."

Now back to the topic....

I looked at the FAQ

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2238

But could find nothing relevant to a discussion on a strategy of of reporting....

If discussion on it or asking for input is in appropriate, then I can just end this....

I was just looking for input of other and how they did it!

[StevenUnderwood]

The topic descriptor for this forum states

"This forum is for discussion of pretty much anything except SpamCop and spam fighting. "

The users of this forum have no power to change the description but by common consent, Help is for reporting service issues, Mail is for Email service issues, and the Lounge is for anything else. The moderator(s) have the ability to move anything way out of scope and will usually inform via PM or email when they have done so.

The topic referred to is "How I use my SpamCop E-Mail account examples" at

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2385 but is aimed more at the mail service users.

To answer your question,report as much as you have time for. There is no right way to do it. My methods have changed often, someimes several times during the course of a day (depending on workload).

Generally, I quick report through the webmail interface (Report as spam link) anything caught by spamcop or any of the other filters I am using (all of them). As long as I have time, I forward any spam that slips by the filters to my submit address and report it as soon as it arrives. If the replies are delayed for some reason, I am more tempted to quick submit those as well.

Some people only report the last 5 or 10 messages received or a certain category (porn, 419...)

Good luck and keep reporting.

[MrEd]

Should I report messages in the Held Mail folder as spam? It is possible, but the messages are already considered spam. So why should I report them.

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't mind reporting them, I just don't know why.

MrEd

[Wazoo]

Should I report messages in the Held Mail folder as spam? It is possible, but the messages are already considered spam. So why should I report them.

That's not exactly true. E-mail makes it to the Held folder for numerous reasons, but the actual "this is a spam" isn't the way the decision is made. For example, it might be an e-mail from your Gandma Kate, but her e-mail happened to go out via an e-mail server that just made the BL due to an infected computer owned by someone else in the same town that used the same ISP. Your long-lost great-uncle Jim might be trying to contact you to pass on his fortuned earned in his years in the Merchant Marines, but he's e-mailing you from a country that you have selected to 'ignore' any incoming e-mail sourced there. Yeah, I kow silly, but just trying to make the point.

You have to look at each e-mail to see why it was 'blocked' ... for simplicity, let's just go with the SpamCopDNSBL ... I can offer up an experience last week, in that one IP was showing as coming up for delisting in about 4 hours ... I processed the spam, checked the IP again, and noted that it was now scheduled for delisting in about 23 hours ... so my additional report went to keeping that IP on the BL for an additional 19 hours, based on the spew still flowing. If we pretend that no one else received and reported the same spam, then iwithin the next 4 hours, that spew would have no longer been filtered, so you might have seen the next batch in your InBox.

As said, just one example, but pointing out that all reporting has benefit.

[MrEd]

Thanks for the info. You are correct that there might be false positives are just bad luck for some grandmas and uncles.

Another question (you probably have guessed by now that I am a newbie to spamcop): the email I get from spamcop after reporting spam, apart from being a confirmation, is there anything I should do with it?

[Wazoo]

If we're talking about the same confirmation letter, you've not yet "reported" anything ... only submitted a spam for parsing, the parser did its thing, and kicked out a note that said it was ready for you to follow the link, take a look at the targets identified, and then actually "send" out those reports. On the other hand, you may have already logged in and done a "Report Now" button activation, which would make the confirmation e-mail moot. That said based on the way most accounts work .. however, if you've set yourself up for "mole reporting" or even "Quick-reporting" .. this answer is probably wrong .. but you didn't specify the account type.

[MrEd]

OK, I'm a bit lost now. I'll read the FAQ (again, but this time more thorough) and if that doesn't help, I'll come back to the forum.

Thanks for the info so far.