Sonic.net

Why is it that when I *black* list an email address it ends up going to my *gray* mail box? I take my favorite spammer, [email protected] or whoever, and enter it into my blacklist. When an email from Mr or Ms Foo arrives, it's dutifully reviewed by SpamAssassin, which applies a 100 USER_IN_BLACKLIST rating along with whatever other sins the message is guilty of, writes them to the header, and then goes ahead and sends it along quick-like-a-bunny to my graymail box. I'm configured to use SpamAssassin and send spam to Graymail; however, I have also chosen 'Discard messages matching SpamAssassin "blacklist from", "blacklist subject" and "blacklist to" lists.' Since this message is now in my graymail box, I get to review it to make sure it wasn't a false positive, before sending it off the the Bit Bucket in the Sky. My question is this: if I've already said I don't want to see this message--that's why I blacklisted it, after all--why is it presented to me again via the graymail box so that I have to deal with it a second time? Is there something wrong with my configuration, or am I somehow missing the advantage of having to say that I really, _really_ want to get rid of this message?

What is your username?

goetsch

Nothing? Guess I'm the only one....

Which option do you have checked on the General Configuration page?

o Deliver messages matching SpamAssassin "blacklist from", "blacklist subject" and "blacklist to" lists (default and recommended setting)

o Discard messages matching SpamAssassin "blacklist from", "blacklist subject" and "blacklist to" lists

In the SpamAssassin Blacklists section of the General Configuration page I have selected the second item

Discard messages matching SpamAssassin "blacklist from", "blacklist subject" and "blacklist to" lists

The text immediately below that selection tells me

If "discard messages" is selected, messages matching the SpamAssassin blacklist rules will be dropped and not delivered to your inbox or Graymail.

Despite that setting, the email matching the blacklist entry is still delivered to my Graymail box. I know it has been seen by SpamAssassin because the spamminess rating in the email header is > 100, which I believe is the weight assigned to blacklisted items by SpamAssassin.

In our environment, "blacklisting" means to send something to the likely spam folder (Graymail) automatically. It's not expected that you'll individually manage items there, but rather will simply review the nightly report to assure that something isn't mis-categorized.

The nightly report is listed in order of score - the least likely to be spam items are nearest the top. So, you will generally find any false positives near the top. We've talked here about including the score as a number or perhaps a bar adjacent to each message, so you can see when you get into the items that are just clearly bad. I just glance at the top few each night in the email report, and then delete and move on.

If that's the case, then the text on the General Configuration page

If "discard messages" is selected, messages matching the SpamAssassin blacklist rules will be dropped and not delivered to your inbox or Graymail.

doesn't appear to really mean what it says, since "...not delivered to your inbox or Graymail" is not the same as "...send something to the likely spam folder (Graymail) automatically."

Hmm. I may be wrong!