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WiscMail / WiscMail Plus Spam Filtering - Submitting Misclassified Messages

This document explains how to handle a legitimate (not-spam) message being misclassified as spam, or a spam message being misclassified as legitimate mail.

To submit a misclassified message

• Sign into the WiscMail or WiscMail Plus Web Client.
  
• When viewing messages in your Inbox, locate the Submit Spam button.
• When viewing messages in your Junk Mail folder, locate the Submit NOT Spam button.
• For individual emails, open the message that was misclassified and click either Submit Spam or Submit NOT Spam to submit the message for review.
• For multiple emails, select the messages by checking the 'Select' box next to the message within the list and click either Submit Spam or Submit NOT Spam to submit the message for review.
• To submit messages as Spam/Not Spam through a desktop email client, forward the messages to is-spam@doit.wisc.edu or not-spam@doit.wisc.edu.
  • This will only work when messages are forwarded properly as attachments. See WiscMail / WiscMail Plus - View/Send the Source of an Email Message
  for details.
  • If after reviewing this document it is still not clear how to correctly forward these messages, submit spam through the WiscMail Website.

Disclaimers

1. Read Spam Filtering - How it Works for information on how messages are scanned and filtered.
   
2. You will not recieve a response for any submission.
   • Please contact the Help Desk if you require assistance
   • Please submit security incidents to BadgIRT. Security incidents are anything that is a violation of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Electronic Appropriate Use Guidelines or is an information security issue involving a subject at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
   
   
3. Some messages may never be accurately classified by the spam scanners. Submitting a misclassified message does not guarantee that future messages will be classified correctly. It is important that you adjust your filters to account for persistent misclassified messages.
   • If a spam message was labeled as non-spam
     • Adjust the level of your Junk Mail filter. If the level is set too low, then more spam will pass through without being filtered. If you raise the level of your Junk Mail filter, be aware that it will be more likely that some of your legitimate messages will be falsely labeled as spam.
     • Add the sender to your Block List filter. Sometimes a spammer is always sending messages that appear like legitimate messages. Adding the sender or sending domain to your Block List filter will send every message from that sender or domain to your Junk Mail folder.
   • If a legitimate message was labeled as spam.
     • Adjust the level of your Junk Mail filter. If the level is set too high, then more legitimate messages will be labeled as spam. If you lower the level of your Junk Mail filter, be aware that it will be unable to catch some spam.
     • Add the sender to your Accept List filter. Sometimes a sender is always sending messages that appear like spam. Adding the sender to your Accept List filter will prevent messages from this sender to be filtered into your Junk Mail folder.
     • Add the mailing list address to your Mailing Lists filter if the message was to one of your subscribed lists. Adding the mailing list address to your Mailing Lists filter will keep messages sent to the list in your Inbox.
   • For more detailed instructions, please see creating and managing your filters.

Additional information can be found at:

WiscMail Users
WiscMail Plus Users