Re: [Az-Geocaching] Re: SPAM

The problem with this is that you will probably delete a lot of mail intended for you. Let me give you some examples why this will happen.

First, I teach my students never to send an email with several addresses on the "to" line, or in the "cc" line. It is bad form, and quite rude, because then you are sharing everybody's email address with everybody else. I have a doctor client who once who sent an email to all breast cancer patients with everybody's address visible. Some patients might not want that made so public. Instead, I tell my students to send the email to themselves and BCC to everybody else. When this is done, my address shows nowhere in the email. Most experienced email users know to do this, and I get several emails a day addressed that way.

Second, while the azgeocaching list messages come addressed to me, many other lists come addressed to the list, not the individual recipient. For example, I am on a list for VW Vanagons, and those messages show the list address in the "to" line, not mine. If you are subscribed to any list that works that way, and at least 1/2 do, all of those messages will be deleted.

Third, and the opposite problem, I just took a quick look in my deleted items, and most of the spam was addressed to me, so this method wouldn't filter it. In my case, this method would filter large numbers of legit messages and a small percentage of spam. Of course, you may have different results.

I do use filters to get rid of spam, but I have set up a number of them, and I filter subject lines for words that occur in spam, but not in my "real" emails. I do not choose to print my list of words here, since many are offensive, but you will get the idea quickly if you check the subject lines of your spam messages.

Finally, a friend who really hates spam has developed an almost perfect method. He has told all his friends that the word "fish" must appear in the subject line of any email sent to him. If it doesn't, it gets filtered to trash. Of course, he couldn't get mail from this list.

Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: Team A.I.
When all inbound mail comes, if the To or CC field doesn't explicitly contain your e-mail address, the e-mail will go straight to your Trash. To ensure you have no false positives, check your Deleted Items folder just to make sure.