A different spam model, which might be possible already (was Re: Ideas for .no Gnus)

[Zack Weinberg <zack@codesourcery.com>]

Frank Schmitt <usereplyto@Frank-Schmitt.net> writes:

> Hello
>
> Now that Oort is released, I'd like to throw some ideas in, which
> features I as (primarily) a user would like to see in the next Gnus:

This is the second of my two wishes:

I use Gnus primarily to get at my mail, which is stored on an IMAP
server.  Mail is sorted into folders by a maildrop script which runs
on the server.  This script is also responsible for running bogofilter
to weed out spam, which is sent to a separate folder; thus the
bogofilter database is stored on that machine, too. I have shell
access to the machine which stores the mail.

I have not yet been able to figure out how to use Gnus' spam features
to feed error corrections back to bogofilter on the remote machine.
The way I would like it to work is:

* If I do 'B m' on message(s) in the spam group, they automagically
  get their $ mark removed.  Also, a hook fires which runs a program
  on the local machine.  This program gets the IMAP UIDs of all the
  moved messages as arguments.  It does *not* get the text of the
  messages on its standard input or elsewhere.  It does not need to
  know the destination of the messages.  The move command is issued to
  the IMAP server only after this program finishes.

* If I mark messages in ham groups as spam ($), then on group exit
  another hook fires which, again, runs a program on the local
  machine, passing the IMAP UIDs of all the spam-marked messages as
  arguments.  This program does need to know the name of the group
  containing the messages - presumably that is an argument too.  After
  the program finishes, all the spam-marked messages are deleted as if
  with 'B DEL', and then EXPUNGE is issued.

The programs run on the local machine are going to ssh over to the
machine which stores the mail, dig the messages out of the mailboxes,
and run bogofilter database update commands on them.  There's no need
to download the messages to the local machine and then send them back
to the server, but there is a need for the messages not to get deleted
or moved until the aforementioned digging happens.

All of this may be possible right now in Oort, but I don't know how to
do it.  There is nothing in the manual about a setup like this, and I
am not familiar enough with Gnus' internals to know where to look for
appropriate hooks, internal functions, etc.  I do know enough Emacs
Lisp that I can probably code this myself given enough pointers.

zw