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Spam update: This comes to us from the Department of Technology and Betty Weycker
Help us inform teachers and parents that WS/FCS is NOT in the business of blocking parents email accounts, gmail accounts, etc. Understanding spam a little better might help others see how spam is a shared problem.
1. WS/FCS does not explicitly block any email domain such as gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, triad.rr.com, etc. Each email is evaluated and 'scored' based upon the content of the email.
2. TimeWarner (our spam filter service) uses SpamAssassin v 3.2.6 to score all of our email. Each 'offense' within any one email is given a score. It's the combined score of an email which determines if it will or won't be flagged as spam. For WS/FCS, a score of 2.0 or higher is flagged as spam.
Suggestions for avoiding getting flagged as spam…check out this site:
http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/AvoidingFpsForSenders
Some suggestions that an end-user can do to avoid being flagged as spam:
• Where possible, choose an email address which looks like a real person's name. "whatsnew10@gallopade1.com" or "floressyxyfu20@pillerseetal.net" are something spammers would use.
• Include a real subject (more than one or two words) and a real body (think 'conversational'). A blank subject or a blank body, especially with an attachment is a red warning flag.
• Do not use "cute" spellings, Don't S.P.A.C.E out your words, don't put str@nge
etters 0r characters into your emails; spammers do this!
• Using any profanity or the names of provocative body parts gets you a high score for spam.
• Don't include a disclaimer that your email isn't spam. Don't claim compliance with some legal criteria, especially one which is not actually law in your country. Only spam needs to claim compliance -- non-spam is supposed to already be in compliance.
• Use normal conversational language…avoid the use of excessive spacing and or capitalization on your subject.
• Don't include gratuitous references to spam subjects. Don't talk about rolex watches, sexually oriented activities or drugs, or debt treatment, unless those topics directly relate to your email. And if they do, limit your email to one topic at a time. An email which mentions rolex watches, Viagra, porn, and debt all in one email will very possibly hit several rules that flag it as spam, even if everything else is clear.
• Where possible, use plain-text and not emails with a background with some graphic. The graphic attachment resembles pharmaceutical spam where the 'words' are replaced by an attached picture of the words/product.
