Improve/customize the messages added to emails by the spam filter

[ct]

Title:
Improve/customize the messages added to emails by the spam filter

Area:
email, spam

Summary:
Currently, when Dreamwidth's spam filter flags a message that may or may not be spam, it forwards the message to the intended recipient and adds a paragraph to the beginning of the message explaining what happened. This message doesn't have the same feel as most other official/official-ish communication from Dreamwidth, so I'm suggesting it should be updated.

Description:
When email gets sent to a paid/seed user's @dreamwidth.org email address, it gets run through a program to weed out spam. Messages that are borderline - maybe spam, maybe not - are sent on to the user with some extra text prepended to the email explaining what happened. Right now, it looks like this:

<i>Spam detection software, running on the system "sb-lb02.dreamwidth.org", has identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label similar future email. If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details.</i>

...which I'm pretty sure is the standard boilerplate that comes with the program. I'd like to see the message customized to be less impersonal/more user-friendly and to make it more obvious that even if the original email is spam, this message is legitimately from Dreamwidth.

Something else that may make it more obvious what these emails actually are would be to change the from and/or the subject of the email to reflect that it's a message from DW's spam filter rather than a message directly from the original sender, but I'm less sure of the etiquette involved there and of whether it would be feasible.

Poll #3538 Improve/customize the messages added to emails by the spam filter

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
13 (46.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (10.7%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (7.1%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (35.7%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[cheyinka]

I wouldn't want to see the from or the subject changed, I don't think, but changing the spam detection message would be fine with me :)

[thorfinn]

+1

I hate modified subject lines.

[kyrielle]

+1. This would make it harder for me to spot legitimate things I wanted to reply to, and also harder to adjust the reply back to go to the original sender (and look right).

But modifying the spam detection message would be fine. :)

[turlough]

+1

[susanreads]

+1

[azurelunatic]

Specific improvement:

Write FAQ about this feature.

Change "If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details." to "For more details, see [link to FAQ] or ask Support ( http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/ ) any further questions."

The rest of it is awkward too, but that right there would point out the best route for any inquiries.

Though I don't know if the presence of such links in something that then gets filed as spam would make one's local spam detector more likely to treat email with Dreamwidth links, FAQ links, and Support links as spam. And that would be a bad thing.

[adalger]

Hi, <username>!

This is the Dreamwidth mail server. I received this email addressed to you, but it looks to me suspiciously like garbage. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I decided to play it safe and let you decide.

===(Original message)===

[sophie]

The message looks like the boilerplate text for SpamAssassin, yes. One thing that SA does in addition to that is it includes headers that can be matched on by email software so that it can be handled automatically (moved to a folder, marked as read, deleting outright, etc). At the moment, though, the easiest way to tell this is a SA message is by the boilerplate text.

If we do do this, it'd be nice to note the headers that can be filtered on in a related FAQ, and to include the FAQ link in the text too.