         fffff       lll
        fff  ff       lll
 iii    fff fff iii   lll
 iii    fff     iii   lll
      fffffff         lll   eeeeee           000    77777   4   4
iiii    fff    iiii   lll  eee   ee         0   0       7   4   4
 iii    fff     iii   lll  eeeeeeee     v v 0   0      7     4444
 iii    fff     iii   lll  eee          v v 0   0     7         4
iiiii  fffff   iiiii lllll  eeeeee       v   000  *  7    *     4

ifile web site --> "http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jr6b/ifile/" <--

If you try to use ifile, I would enjoy hearing from you.  There is a comment
form at the bottom of this README which I encourage you to fill out and e-mail
to me <jr6b+@andrew.cmu.edu>.

For installation instructions, read the INSTALL file.
For information on modification history, read the ChangeLog file.
If you are upgrading from a previous version of ifile, please read the UPGRADE file.
For answers to commonly asked questions, read the FAQ file.

What is ifile?

ifile is a general mail filtering system which uses a modern-day text
learning algorithm to intelligently filter mail according to the way
a user tends to organize mail.

ifile is different from other mail filtering programs in three major
ways:

   1. ifile does not require the user to generate a set of rules in
      order to successfully filter mail 
   2. ifile uses the entire content of messages for filtering purposes 
   3. ifile learns as the user moves incorrectly filtered messages to
      new mailboxes 

ifile is not dependent upon any specific mail system and should be
adaptable to any mail system which allows an outside program to
perform mail filtering.  Currently, ifile has been adapted to the MH
and EXMH mail systems.

Does it actually work?

Yes.  I've had a number of users tell me that ifile does a great job
of filtering mail.  In my own experiences, it has also done a nice
job.  Since I've added code to keep track of the number of filters
vs. refiles, ifile has correctly filtered about 85% of my mail.  What
is impressive about that number is that I have over 30 folders into
which I filter mail.

You can keep track of how well ifile filters your mail by examining
a file named .idata_accuracy, which will be created in your home
directory once you use ifilter or irefile for the first time.

Once I install the system, what exactly do I do?

Before expecting the ifile system to filter your mail with any
accuracy, you should run the knowledge_base script associated with
your mail client.  This will have ifile compile a database on the way
you organize mail.  Once ifile is installed and knowledge_base is run,
ifile will be capable of filtering your mail.  Your only requirement
is to move to its proper place any mail that is filtered incorrectly.
This action will modify ifile's learned model and allow it to better
filter subsequent messages.

Who wrote this?

Why, I did!  'I' am Jason Rennie, a junior majoring in Computer
Science at Carnegie Mellon University.  I've been programming for most
of my life, starting with BASIC as a youth, moving through Pascal
during high school and then widening my horizons in college with such
languages as C/C++, perl, Java and ML.  Since installing it in
December of '95, I have become a big-time linux fan, running it almost
exclusively.

I've been doing quite a bit of work with learning algorithms,
especially text-based learning, and I decided it would be cool to
apply one of the text learning algorithms to mail filtering.  So, I
did.

Other code contributors include Diego Zamboni, Chris Browne and Andrew
McCallum.

Credits
-------
Tom Mitchell - Professor who was willing to hire me for a summer during
	       which I learned vast amounts of information about machine
               and text learning.  He is also a very nice guy to work with.
Dave Robinson - Alpha tester, pointed out some major bugs in the early
                versions.  A good source of encouragement :)
Diego Zamboni - Wrote first C port of ifile.  Another nice source of
                encouragement.
Chris Browne - Proposed numerous suggestions and ideas for increasing the
               efficiency of the ifile C code.
Andrew McCallum - Author of Rainbow, a text classification package which is
                  the basis for some ifile code.

Thanks also go to such people as Colin McCormack, Alfred Werner,
Mikael Nilsson, Jim Grinnell and Ken Wallich who have made their own little
contributions to the success of ifile.

Neat web sites related to ifile/text learning:

WiseWire - WWW document filtering - sort of like Yahoo, only better
http://www.wisewire.com/

General code for text classification
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mccallum/bow/

Tom Mitchell's home page
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/

If you do find this program helpful and would like to support it and see
it grow into a powerful, full-featured, robust mail filtering system (gotta
make sure to include all the buzzwords) please fill out the following short
survey and mail it to jr6b+@andrew.cmu.edu:

------------------------->8--------------------------

What version of ifile are you using? :

What operating system do you run? :

What is your default C compiler? :

What mail client do you use? :

What version of perl is on your system? :

Did you have any problems installing ifile?  If so, please describe
them here:





Did you encounter any problems while running ifile (e.g. lost mail -
poor job of filtering)?  If so, please describe them here (copies of
/tmp/ifile.info, ifilter.mh.info and irefile.mh.info and would be
really helpful) :





Do you have any suggestions on how to improve ifile?





----------------------8<---------------------------

Thank you for your interest!!!! :)

$Id: README,v 1.13 1999/04/23 02:50:04 jr6b Exp $