Re: IMAP extensions needed for SPAM/HAM and WHITE/BLACK listing

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2009-07-05 at 17:40 -0700, Ned Freed wrote:
> The obvious way to make this work in IMAP is with a standardized
> folder
> annotation saying "messages put in this folder were flagged as spam".
> Then
> moves of messages to the folder with this annotation provide the
> server with
> the necessary information that this message is considered to be spam
> by the
> user. And by the same token, moving a message from this folder can be
> construed
> as the message not being considered spam after all.

This is just trying to turn a folder into a keyword, but without full
keyword semantics. The most obvious flaw is that it constrains the
client to storing all the spam in one bucket. It doesn't allow for (say)
sorting junk by type into different folders (perhaps on different
servers). A message's 'state of spamminess' is an attribute of the
message, properly denoted by keywords that stick to (and with) the
message.

If you want this functionality (and I think it's a useful service for
servers to provide) you need to implement two keywords: $spam and
$nospam (these are just example names). Setting $spam on a message would
instruct the server to pass the message off to the filtering component
as spam; setting $nospam would instruct the server to pass the message
off to the filtering component as valid (non-spam). The two keywords are
exclusive, and it would be up to the server to decide what action to
take if the client tries to light up both at once (e.g. unset the other
flag and take the corresponding action, reject the command, or silently
ignore the request).