Re: [Asrg] FeedBack loops

[der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>]

>>> If a statistically valid sample of an ISP's users (as processed by
>>> their own user reputation systems) think something is spam, why
>>> would that ISP disagree?
>> Ummm...maybe because they know most end users don't know the
>> difference between spam and other forms of unwanted mail?
> Why should that matter?

Because spam reports and unwanted-mail reports are very different
things and call for different reactions.  If I as a mailing list admin
get something saying just "this user doesn't want this mail any
longer", a quick unsub is a perfectly reasonable reaction.  If I get
something saying "this mail is spam", a much deeper investigation is
warranted - unless I think it really means the former and is just using
the wrong term, of course.

Conflating the two - which is what reporting unwanted mail as spam, or
spam as vanilla unwanted mail, does - is bad because it means impairing
the response to at least one of the underlying situations.

> It's unwanted, and it got reported, and it's up to the ISP to decide
> what to do about that.

Yes, but it got mis-reported, reported as something it's not.  This
will, at best, waste resources.

>> One of the things I've noticed is that far too many people - on any
>> side - seem to lose track of the fact that mail can be non-spam and
>> still be eminently blockworthy.
> Maybe because they don't care if there's a difference between spam
> and other forms of unwanted mail?

Then - unless within a fairly specific and narrow context - they're
stupid, because "spam" and "unwanted mail" are categories with subset
relations in neither direction, and the appropriate responses to the
four cateogries are all fairly distinct.  (Yes, spam can be wanted;
stealth spamtraps are the first example to come to mind.)

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