Blacklisting by subject

[linelle]

I just don't understand why some blacklisted subject words, e.g., *Russian*, are still coming through into my Graymail. Do I need to give it a score as well? Ever since switching all my devices to IMAP (which I really prefer BTW), seeing my Graymail contents on my local devices brings them into my reality and drives me a little nuts. A weekly spam that was stopped for a couple of months is now coming back.

If I need to tweak a score, please advise.

[jleake]

We'd have to take a look at the headers for the messages to determine why they're still getting through. If you can forward the headers to support or forward the offending message as an attachment with a brief explanation of the issue, we should be able to figure it out. Chances are good the blacklist entry is being overridden by something in one of your whitelists.

[linelle]

Juliana, thank you for your reply. I will do that. I did look at my scores and I confess I don't know if a high score, score of 0, or a minus score stands a better chance of keeping spam away.

[jleake]

A high score means it's probably spam, a score of 0 is neutral, and a negative score means it's less likely it's spam.

Points for each rule triggered are added together to get the final score for a message, which determines if it goes into your inbox. Blacklisting something will add +100 to the score and whitelisting something will add -100 to the score (if you have both a blacklist and a whitelist entry, they will cancel each other out). By default, the filter sends anything with a cumulative score of over 5 to the Graymail. You can adjust that if you find it is either not sensitive enough or too sensitive.

[linelle]

Thanks Juliana. You know, I think I may be unclear on a certain concept. While I definitely prefer unwanted spam to end up in my Graymail box rather than my regular Inbox, I guess I was hoping for something that would blast the blacklisted stuff before it even gets that far, basically not permitting it to even land in my Graymail. Is that possible with the tools Sonic provides?

Thanks,
Linelle

[linelle]

After reading the Graymail FAQ, I now understand that there is a setting whereby I can have blacklisted items rejected before they reach my Graymail inbox. As annoying as seeing this stuff arrive in my Graymail, I do realize that occasionally something I REALLY want can have a blacklisted word in the subject line. I might just have to tolerate this stuff. I appreciate all your help.