Re: Configuring spam.el: A few questions

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, tvrud@bredband.net wrote:

> Hello. I'm still working on my spam.el config and there are a few
> topic I have some difficulties to understand (I don't want to do
> 'trial and error' since loosing emails are not an option):
> 
> I have a set up of a lot of nnfolders and one is the spam group,
> nnfolder:Spam. I want all spam found during splitting to end up in
> this group:
> 
> At the top topic ('Email') I have the topic property:
> ((spam-process-destination . "nnfolder:Spam"))
> 
> The Spam-group is part of this topic.

OK, that's fine.

> I want all spam I detect in the other groups to be marked as spam
> (i.e. I will set the spam mark) and then it should be sent to
> bogofilter and then deleted.

OK.  At the top level, you also want to make bogofilter the spam exit
processor then.

> As I've understood it, all spam marked mails will be moved to the
> Spam-group due to the topic parameter above, but then? 

With a spam exit processor, the spam will also be processed before
it's moved.  Also, it will be marked expired.

> I enter the group every now and then. But I don't quite understand
> how I tell spam.el to train bogofilter on the content of
> nnfolder:Spam. What I'm slightly afraid of is that Gnus ends up in
> an infinite loop and moves the content of nnfolder:Spam to the
> nnfolder:Spam folder.

Since the mail in the Spam folder is marked as expired, you'll be OK.
You can remove the contents of the Spam folder periodically if you
want to.

> I assume I have to set spam-move-spam-nonspam-groups-only to t to
> prevent this, right?

No, this is not necessary, but you can use it if you like.

> If I've understood it correctly, if I set the group parameters of
> nnfolder:Spam to
>      ((spam-contents gnus-group-spam-classification-spam))
> everything will work as expected, i.e. bogofilter is trained on the
> contents of nnfolder:Spam and the content is not moved anywhere,
> right?

What that parameter does is mark all UNSEEN articles in the Spam group
as spam when you enter the Spam group.  So if you have an external
agent that puts articles in Spam, that's one way to quickly catch and
process those articles every time you visit the Spam group.

> There are two potential scenarios that I would find acceptable:
> 
> 1. Any found spam is moved to nnfolder:Spam and then trained when I
>    enter and exit that group and then deleted.
> 
> 2. Any found spam during splitting goes to nnfolder:Spam and it is
>    treated as above. Any spam I find in any other group which I mark
>    as spam (with gnus-summary-mark-as-spam) is then processed by
>    bogofilter as spam and then deleted. I.e. never moved to any
>    other group.

I recommend to use a "Spam" and a "Train" folder since above you're
trying to use the "Spam" folder as both - see my example setup in the
manual and that may give you some ideas.  There is no single way to do
spam filtering, spam.el is very flexible in what it allows.

Both 1 and 2 above are possible with the right spam process
destination and spam exit processor.  Remember that a nil spam process
destination means the spam articles are left in place and marked as
expired - that should make (2) pretty easy.

Ted