Garbage In, Garbage Out
I'm starting to wonder what the point of my e-mail filter is. I have it set to what is alleged to be the most discriminating standard, but all it actually seems to filter out are e-mails that are either blatantly pornographic or items from people that I actually do know but who simply don't write to me that often. This is not to suggest that I don't get much junk mail--I do, by the truckload. In fact, here's what's accumulated in my in-box (i.e. stuff that was not filtered out) since I went to bed last night about ten hours ago:
A "Special Promotion" offering life insurance in 10 minutes
An offer for Mother's Day flowers
A skin therapy ad
A request to take a survey about (I'm not kidding) chewing gum
Something about taking a course to become a para-legal
An ad that promises a free dinner from Olive Garden or Red Lobster
Yet another "personal" invitation from Donald Trump to enroll in Trump University
Another Mother's Day promotion
Something listed as "National Gas Survey"
Keep in mind these are all items my filter must have felt were not junk mail. In the same period of time, here's everything that actually was filtered out into the junk folder:
Another life insurance ad
Something from "ROLeXReplicas"
A note from one "Thomas" containing the subject line "SmallChicks Take BigDicks"
The only other thing that ended up in the junk folder was an e-mail from my real estate agent (not you, Diane; I got your very helpful e-mail before bed last night) containing vital information that I would definitely want to see but would have completely missed if I didn't check the filter every day for exactly this sort of thing. But then, having to do that kind of negates the whole point of a filter, doesn't it?
A "Special Promotion" offering life insurance in 10 minutes
An offer for Mother's Day flowers
A skin therapy ad
A request to take a survey about (I'm not kidding) chewing gum
Something about taking a course to become a para-legal
An ad that promises a free dinner from Olive Garden or Red Lobster
Yet another "personal" invitation from Donald Trump to enroll in Trump University
Another Mother's Day promotion
Something listed as "National Gas Survey"
Keep in mind these are all items my filter must have felt were not junk mail. In the same period of time, here's everything that actually was filtered out into the junk folder:
Another life insurance ad
Something from "ROLeXReplicas"
A note from one "Thomas" containing the subject line "SmallChicks Take BigDicks"
The only other thing that ended up in the junk folder was an e-mail from my real estate agent (not you, Diane; I got your very helpful e-mail before bed last night) containing vital information that I would definitely want to see but would have completely missed if I didn't check the filter every day for exactly this sort of thing. But then, having to do that kind of negates the whole point of a filter, doesn't it?
posted by Yukon Sully | 9:04 AM
2 Comments:
I can only assume you're using a Microsoft product. At work I use Outlook, and at home my wife uses Entourage (the Mac Outlook equivalent) and the junk mail filters are useless. I've actually never been happy with any filters on a stand-alone application. The best filter I have ever seen is the one I have now, using Gmail. I can't figure I'll ever change. I have never gotten a regular email in the junk folder, and I get about two or three junk emails a week in my inbox.
I am right there with Mr. Jerz. My GMail account has never placed a spam email in the wrong place...or vice versa!
I have some invites if you are interested :)
Also...I have heard that Thunderbird is pretty good with spam as well. Then again, I haven't used it.
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