[Spambayes] Deployment

Skip Montanaro skip@pobox.com
Fri, 6 Sep 2002 16:20:05 -0500


    >> FYI, I'll never trust such a scheme: I have no tolerance for false
    >> positives, and indeed do nothing to try to block spam on any of my
    >> email accounts now for that reason.  Deliver all suspected spam to a
    >> Spam folder instead and I'd love it.

    Guido> Another config parameter.

Nix on that idea.  If you make it a config parameter, some sysadmin is bound
to use it and lose important mail for a customer.

Essentially every mail user agent has some sort of filtering capability.
Instead of *ever* deleting mail you should simply tag it with your decision
about its spamminess and send it along.  The user can then configure
Outlook, Outlook Express, procmail, mutt, pine, VM, ... to do what she wants
with the stuff that trips the spam check.

The biggest false accusation people (not limited to the spammers) make about
tools like SpamAssassin is that it deletes email.  It doesn't.  It just tags
email.  Someone (the user or the sysadmin) made a decision to delete spammy
mail instead of squirreling it away for further review.  SA gets wrongly
accused.  Don't provide detractors with more ammunition than necessary.

just-message-tags-ma'am-ly y'rs,

Skip