Spellcheck plugin?

[Gaal Yahas <ga...@forum2.org>]

I'm wondering, would it be useful to have a plugin that penalizes messages
with many spelling mistakes? This might help against all those creative
ways of spelling out what the spammer wants to sell.

To have any hope of working for people who expect mail in more than one
language, a language recognition tool would be needed, but fortunately
there are some of those around.[1]

This adds quite a bit of complexity. Has anyone given it any thought?


[1] E.g. <http://neugierig.org/software/langid/>.

-- 
Gaal Yahas <ga...@forum2.org>
http://gaal.livejournal.com/

RE: Spellcheck plugin?

["Michele Neylon :: Blacknight Solutions" <mi...@blacknightsolutions.com>]

Eugene Morozov wrote:
> Loren Wilton wrote:
>>> I'm wondering, would it be useful to have a plugin that penalizes
>>> messages with many spelling mistakes? This might help against all
>>> those creative ways of spelling out what the spammer wants to sell.
>> 
>> 
>> I don't know that anyone has worked on specifically what you are
>> thinking of, which is an interesting idea and worth testing, I think.
>> There are things like Tripwire that look for some outright outlandish
>> spellings, and lots of things that look for obfuscated specific
>> words. 
>> 
> 
> Such a plugin was written by someone about a year ago --
> check gmane archive of sa-users mailing list. It turned out
> to be not really reliable method for detecting spam.
> Eugene

Judging by the overall quality of emails that we get from clients,
prospective clients, suppliers etc., I would be very wary of penalising
anyone due to spelling - we'd all lose business!!

M

Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd
Hosting, co-location & domains
http://www.blacknight.ie/
Tel. +353 59 9137101


-- 
Email scanned by Blacknight for viruses and dangerous content.
Visit http://www.blacknight.ie for more information

Re: Spellcheck plugin?

[Eugene Morozov <sa...@eltex.net>]

Loren Wilton wrote:
>>I'm wondering, would it be useful to have a plugin that penalizes messages
>>with many spelling mistakes? This might help against all those creative
>>ways of spelling out what the spammer wants to sell.
> 
> 
> I don't know that anyone has worked on specifically what you are thinking
> of, which is an interesting idea and worth testing, I think.  There are
> things like Tripwire that look for some outright outlandish spellings, and
> lots of things that look for obfuscated specific words.
> 

Such a plugin was written by someone about a year ago -- check gmane 
archive of sa-users mailing list. It turned out to be not really 
reliable method for detecting spam.
Eugene

Re: Spellcheck plugin?

[Loren Wilton <lw...@earthlink.net>]

> I'm wondering, would it be useful to have a plugin that penalizes messages
> with many spelling mistakes? This might help against all those creative
> ways of spelling out what the spammer wants to sell.

I don't know that anyone has worked on specifically what you are thinking
of, which is an interesting idea and worth testing, I think.  There are
things like Tripwire that look for some outright outlandish spellings, and
lots of things that look for obfuscated specific words.

        Loren

Re: Spellcheck plugin?

[Matt Kettler <mk...@comcast.net>]

At 03:39 PM 10/6/2004 +0200, Gaal Yahas wrote:
>I'm wondering, would it be useful to have a plugin that penalizes messages
>with many spelling mistakes?

No, it's been suggested before, and tested.. the FP rate was rather high. 
Bear in mind all the "legitimate" email from AOL users that can barely 
spell their own names, and choose to use extensive chat-room shortcuts and 
slang in their emails.... whut u doin l8er?

Search the archives.. Someone comes up with the idea at least twice a year.