Dave Cridland wrote:
> On Sun Jul 5 20:03:30 2009, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: > >> On 3 jul 2009, at 1:05, George Michaelson wrote: >> >>> As an example, at the moment if I wish to inform google that I >>> have known spam in local folders, I have to go to the web >>> interface and manually tag. If there was an IMAP extension, I >>> could review my local baysian junk folder, remove all non-spam >>> (and flag the senders as white-listed if need be), and request the >>> rest to be flagged as spam back on the IMAP backed MS. >> >> Doesn't moving the spam messages to the spam folder accomplish this >> already? That's what my client does. > > There's also a proposal (expired?) to use keywords to signal spamminess.
To expand on this: I believe the proposal is implemented by several major email clients (Thunderbird is one of them).
[For people not familiar with IMAP: IMAP keywords is a basic IMAP feature implemented by majority of IMAP servers I've seen.]
The problem with using keywords for this is that you are now dependence on your client supporting that particular set of keywords and their associated semantics. Had we standardize such a keyword set 10 or so years ago this approach miight have had a chance, but the client base is now too large and too difficult to update. This is why I think folder annotations are a better bet. You mark the spam folder and use that marking to attach meaning to the movement of messages into and out of that folder. It's not perfect, but it has the key advantage that it works with any client (OK, any client that can use folders) once the annotation is in place. Ned