the state of spam.el

the state of spam.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

Right now, spam.el offers whitelists/blacklists and blackhole
checking.  The checks are hardwired (the spam-split function excerpt
here should illustrate what I mean):

  (let* ((from (message-fetch-field "from"))
	 (group nil))
    (when (spam-check-blackholes)
      (setq group spam-split-group))
    (unless (spam-address-whitelisted-p from)	; unless the address is whitelisted,
      (when (spam-address-blacklisted-p from) ; check if it's blacklisted,
	(setq group spam-split-group))	; and if so, set the group to spam-split-group
      group)))

There's two directions I want to go:

- allow symbols for the spam-split function, so the user can add only
  a blackhole check, for instance.  That will make the system a lot
  more flexible.

- provide summary exit functionality that processes messages marked as
  spam.

There's two questions I have:

- I submitted a bug report of the dns.el problems on first-time
  lookups for blackholes, and they have not been resolved yet AFAIK.
  So the blackhole check does not work reliably, at least for me.  Is
  anyone interested in helping with this?

- On a summary exit, I want to allow the user to add spam processing
  functions: statistics, submission to blackhole servers, etc.  Does
  anyone have a problem with marking spam messages that have been
  *processed* as expired?

I'll be on vacation through September, but towards the end of the
month I will be back and ready to implement whatever approach is
agreed upon.  If anyone wants to get it done sooner, that's fine with
me.

Thanks
Ted