Comment Re:Nitpick... (Score 2, Informative) 326
The way spambayes estimates the probability that a msg is spam given that it contains a specific word is thoroughly Bayesian, as described on Gary Robinson's web page, and in his March "Linux Journal" article.
The way spambayes combines probabilities ("chi-squared combining") is indeed not Bayesian at all. The probability combining scheme Paul Graham suggested isn't correctly Bayesian either, unless you assume the universe consists of equal numbers of ham and spam messages (so that the prior probability of spam is 0.5).
The way spambayes combines probabilities ("chi-squared combining") is indeed not Bayesian at all. The probability combining scheme Paul Graham suggested isn't correctly Bayesian either, unless you assume the universe consists of equal numbers of ham and spam messages (so that the prior probability of spam is 0.5).
