Re: Changes to the mailinglist setup

On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 01:36:06AM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Well, we changed to postfix because 3/4 of the SPI admins can work with
> postfix, while only 2/4 can work with exim4, so thats the main reason
> for the switch.
>
> That this new setup now catches more spam seems to be a side effect
> reported by a listmaster who needed to do way less moderation after the
> change than he needed to do before, with the few closed lists we had
> then. I personally don't understand much of exim, so cant really judge
> the setup we had, I only know we had a shitload of spam on the lists
> (and complains from board members about it), and if one looks in the
> archives for lists that have been open until today, like board, you see
> that at the date the MTAs switched the spam goes back to nearly 0.....

Since you admit you don't understand much of Exim, please don't conflate the
issue of letting spam through filters with the choice of MTA :P

The previous setup actually did have most of the things that you mention
below, and in-session scanning at that, but it clearly didn't have the same
level of filtering ability - AFAIK, neither me nor Wichert spent any
particular time training the Bayesian classifier in the recent months, we
didn't do any additions to the list of RBLs either, our SA was 3.0 still I
think so we didn't have sa-update (which updates the SA custom rules from
upstream), and we didn't have any special Mailman anti-spam provisions like
the ones you added.

Postfix is now used because Joerg knows Postfix, and Joerg is doing the work.
Let's acknowledge that, and drop the unqualified Exim bashing, mmmkay?

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.