[Spambayes] understanding high false negative rate [Jeremy] > The total collections are 1100 messages.  I trained with 1100/5 > messages. While that's not a lot of training data, I picked random subsets of my corpora and got much better behavior (this is rates.py output; f-p rate per run in left column, f-n rate in right): Training on Data/Ham/Set1 & Data/Spam/Set1 ... 220 hams & 220 spams       0.000   1.364       0.000   0.455       0.000   1.818       0.000   1.364 Training on Data/Ham/Set2 & Data/Spam/Set2 ... 220 hams & 220 spams       0.455   2.727       0.455   0.455       0.000   0.909       0.455   2.273 Training on Data/Ham/Set3 & Data/Spam/Set3 ... 220 hams & 220 spams       0.000   2.727       0.455   0.909       0.000   0.909       0.000   1.818 Training on Data/Ham/Set4 & Data/Spam/Set4 ... 220 hams & 220 spams       0.000   2.727       0.000   0.909       0.000   0.909       0.000   1.818 Training on Data/Ham/Set5 & Data/Spam/Set5 ... 220 hams & 220 spams       0.000   1.818       0.000   1.364       0.000   0.909       0.000   2.273 total false pos 4 0.363636363636 total false neg 29 2.63636363636 Another full run with another randomly chosen (but disjoint) 220 of each in each set was much the same.  The score distribution is also quite sharp: Ham distribution for all runs: * = 74 items   0.00 4381 ************************************************************   2.50    3 *   5.00    3 *   7.50    1 *  10.00    0  12.50    0  15.00    1 *  17.50    1 *  20.00    1 *  22.50    0  25.00    0  27.50    0  30.00    1 *  32.50    0  35.00    0  37.50    0  40.00    1 *  42.50    0  45.00    0  47.50    0  50.00    0  52.50    0  55.00    0  57.50    1 *  60.00    0  62.50    0  65.00    0  67.50    1 *  70.00    0  72.50    0  75.00    0  77.50    0  80.00    0  82.50    0  85.00    0  87.50    1 *  90.00    0  92.50    2 *  95.00    0  97.50    2 * Spam distribution for all runs: * = 73 items   0.00   13 *   2.50    0   5.00    4 *   7.50    5 *  10.00    0  12.50    2 *  15.00    1 *  17.50    1 *  20.00    2 *  22.50    1 *  25.00    0  27.50    1 *  30.00    0  32.50    3 *  35.00    0  37.50    0  40.00    0  42.50    0  45.00    1 *  47.50    3 *  50.00   16 *  52.50    0  55.00    0  57.50    0  60.00    1 *  62.50    0  65.00    2 *  67.50    1 *  70.00    1 *  72.50    0  75.00    1 *  77.50    0  80.00    3 *  82.50    2 *  85.00    1 *  87.50    2 *  90.00    2 *  92.50    4 *  95.00    4 *  97.50 4323 ************************************************************ It's hard to say whether you need better ham or better spam, but I suspect better spam .  18 of the 30 most powerful discriminators here were HTML-related spam indicators; the top 10 overall were:         '' 312 0.99         '' 329 0.99         'click' 334 0.99         '' 335 0.99         'wrote:' 381 0.01         'skip:< 10' 398 0.99         'python' 428 0.01         'content-type:text/html' 454 0.99 The HTML tags come from non-multipart/alternative HTML messages, from which HTML tags aren't stripped, and there are lots of these in my spam sets. That doesn't account for it, though.  If I strip HTML tags out of those too, the rates are only a little worse: raining on Data/Ham/Set1 & Data/Spam/Set1 ... 220 hams & 220 spams      0.000   1.364      0.000   1.818      0.455   1.818      0.000   1.818 raining on Data/Ham/Set2 & Data/Spam/Set2 ... 220 hams & 220 spams      0.000   1.364      0.455   1.818      0.455   0.909      0.000   1.818 raining on Data/Ham/Set3 & Data/Spam/Set3 ... 220 hams & 220 spams      0.000   2.727      0.000   0.909      0.909   0.909      0.455   1.818 raining on Data/Ham/Set4 & Data/Spam/Set4 ... 220 hams & 220 spams      0.000   1.818      0.000   0.909      0.455   0.909      0.000   1.364 raining on Data/Ham/Set5 & Data/Spam/Set5 ... 220 hams & 220 spams      0.000   2.727      0.000   1.364      0.455   2.273      0.455   2.273 otal false pos 4 0.363636363636 otal false neg 34 3.09090909091 The 4th-strongest discriminator *still* finds another HTML clue, though!         'subject:Python' 164 0.01         'money' 169 0.99         'content-type:text/plain' 185 0.2         'charset:us-ascii' 191 0.127273         "i'm" 232 0.01         'content-type:text/html' 248 0.983607         'Â ' 255 0.99         'wrote:' 372 0.01         'python' 431 0.01         'click' 519 0.99 Heh.  I forgot all about Â .