[spambayes-dev] RE: [Spambayes] How low can you go?

[T. Alexander Popiel]

In message:  <MHEGIFHMACFNNIMMBACAMEHOGPAA.nobody at spamcop.net>
             "Seth Goodman" <nobody at spamcop.net> writes:

>could someone please give me some hints as to which of the mapping features
>we've discussed in this thread exist or will soon exist and where I can look
>for them?

If we're trying to get reproducible results, then I strongly suggest
looking at the various testing frameworks we have built.  I haven't
done any stuff with maintaining the mappings, but my expire4months
regime does keep message lists for expiry.  Building a mapping on
top of that shouldn't be too difficult...

>I saw on spambayes-dev that there is discussion of a new database, so
>I don't want to go off on a useless fork with the present db if that
>comes to pass.

Again, if we're trying to get reproducible results, then I think that
the main DB and such is the wrong place to be starting.  We shouldn't
be treating just anecdotal evidence from running changed code with our
ongoing live mail feeds as the best we can do.

While the Outlook plugin has done wonders for our popularity, it seems
to have utterly destroyed our rigor.  People now typically don't have
the slightest clue how to go from their normal usage to a testing
deployment...  or at least don't know how to extract their mail from
Outlook's clutches so that they have data to work _on_.

As I don't use Outlook in any environment where I see spam, I don't
know how to write the newbie guide to fix this... if indeed it is
fixable.  I'm spoiled by doing most of my mail handling in an
environment which encourages treating mail as data to be arbitrarily
processed, instead of just viewed through a gui.

- Alex