[Ifile-discuss] Effect of widely differing volumes on ifile classification

[Jack Bertram]

I use ifile to classify all my emails, including the mailing lists I
subscribe to, and I tend to get a classification success rate of around
95-98%.

Recently, the rate, which had been consistent for some time, began to
plunge to about 50% and stayed there, until I deleted .idata and rebuilt
it from scratch, and it's now classifying better than before.  (Data
attached at bottom for completeness)

I'm wondering whether ifile's database got "overloaded" by having large
numbers of different volumes sent into different categories.  However,
if that were the case, then I'd have expected it to start classifying
emails into the mailing list categories rather than into other
categories.  This didn't happen - it actually started to misclassify the
mailing lists which receive all the volume.

Any ideas what could cause this "chaotic" effect?

jack


Date            Total   Incorrect       Percentage
----            ------- ---------       ----------
Thu Feb 20      160     8               95%
Fri Feb 21      189     7               96.2%
Sat Feb 22      164     2               98.7%
Sun Feb 23      45      3               93.3%
Mon Feb 24      85      1               98.8%
Tue Feb 25      136     2               98.5%
Wed Feb 26      171     7               95.9%
Thu Feb 27      167     23              86.2%
Fri Feb 28      164     44              73.1%
Sat Mar  1      166     58              65%
Sun Mar  2      131     29              77.8%
Mon Mar  3      129     17              86.8%
Tue Mar  4      195     43              77.9%
Wed Mar  5      279     62              77.7%
Thu Mar  6      180     50              72.2%
Fri Mar  7      257     9               96.4%
Sat Mar  8      157     28              82.1%
Sun Mar  9      106     0               100%    - didn't read email; no 
reclassification done
Mon Mar 10      93      48              48.3%
Tue Mar 11      172     76              55.8%
Wed Mar 12      160     51              68.1%
Thu Mar 13      131     4               96.9%   - regenerated .idata
Fri Mar 14      176     0               100%
Sat Mar 15      141     7               95%
Sun Mar 16      86      2               97.6%
Mon Mar 17      124     1               99.1%
Tue Mar 18      204     4               98%
Wed Mar 19      230     3               98.6%
Thu Mar 20      204     4               98%