[Savannah-cvs] [400] non-english lists not supported

[karl]

Revision: 400
          
http://svn.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/?view=rev&root=administration&revision=400
Author:   karl
Date:     2019-11-09 12:05:55 -0500 (Sat, 09 Nov 2019)
Log Message:
-----------
non-english lists not supported

Modified Paths:
--------------
    trunk/sviki/ListHelperAntiSpam.mdwn

Modified: trunk/sviki/ListHelperAntiSpam.mdwn
===================================================================
--- trunk/sviki/ListHelperAntiSpam.mdwn 2019-10-10 18:56:50 UTC (rev 399)
+++ trunk/sviki/ListHelperAntiSpam.mdwn 2019-11-09 17:05:55 UTC (rev 400)
@@ -23,16 +23,15 @@
 If you change these settings, we will assume you want to delete all spam
 yourself and not use listhelper.
 
-(\*) Actually, the spam removal via listhelper@ is not tied to gnu.org
-in any way. A few people are using it for handling mailman lists outside
-of Savannahd and GNU as well. If you'd like to do that, email us. On the
-other hand, the shared moderation help via listhelper-moderate requires
-a script and cron job on the target system.
+(\*) Spam removal via listhelper@ is not tied to gnu.org. A few people
+are using it for handling mailman lists outside of Savannahd and GNU as
+well. If you'd like to do that, email us. On the other hand, the shared
+moderation help via listhelper-moderate requires a script and cron job
+on the target system.
 
-(\*\*) Actually, respond\_to\_post\_requests has nothing to do with the
-listhelper system. But it's important to do, because it reduces
-backscatter from lists.gnu.org, which in turn decreases our chance of
-being blacklisted.
+(\*\*) respond\_to\_post\_requests has nothing to do with the listhelper
+system. But it's important to do, because it reduces backscatter from
+lists.gnu.org, which in turn decreases our chance of being blacklisted.
 
 ([\*\*]) Setting default\_member\_moderation=yes protects against the spammers
 who know how to subscribe to a list and then send out their spam. We
@@ -57,8 +56,9 @@
 ------------
 The general idea is that messages that end up in mailman's hold queue
 for the list will be piped through a conservatively-configured
-spamassassin, and 95+% of spam will be automatically deleted after a
-short delay (usually measured in minutes, unless things get backlogged).
+spamassassin, bogofilter, and crm114, and 95+% of spam will be
+automatically deleted after a short delay (usually measured in minutes,
+unless things get backlogged).
 
 Real messages from non-members (or non-approved addresses) will remain
 in the hold queue, and need to be approved by a human. (We recommend
@@ -76,9 +76,33 @@
 those settings are made by default for Savannah lists.
 
 Please feel free to add other GNU lists; we don't need to be explicitly
-informed. And of course we're happy to answer any questions. And if you
-need help moderating the list, likewise let us know.
+informed, although we are happy to answer any questions. If you want
+help moderating the list, likewise let us know.
 
+Non-English lists
+-----------------
+
+After some time, we realized that listhelper has problems when most of
+the real mail to a list is not in English. This is because the Bayes
+classifier is a large part of the spam/nonspam determination, and it
+doesn't have enough real mail in other languages. Although there's no
+way to explicitly determine the language which is mostly used on a given
+list, we figured that if the mailman interface language (the
+preferred\_language value) is not English, most likely the mail
+to the list was mostly not English either.
+
+So, around 1 June 2013, we removed listhelper from all lists which had a
+different interface language, and will continue to do so with new lists
+as they arise. We know this makes for extra work for those list
+moderators, which we regret, but too much real mail was being deleted.
+We also set max\_days\_to\_hold> to 300 for these lists, since we knew
+many of them were unattended, and did not want spam to build up
+literally forever. 10 months should be enough to handle incoming
+messages.
+
+This whole issue could be ameliorated with sufficient work;
+if anyone is interested in pursuing it, contact us.
+
 Inside listhelper
 -----------------
 The system was set up by Bob Proulx, with kibitzing from Karl Berry. We
@@ -92,15 +116,13 @@
 infrastructure changes. Maybe someday a better system will be possible.
 
 Nearly every list on lists.gnu.org is checked to some extent. The known
-exceptions are those which explicitly did not want any checking, such as
-fsfe-uk, bug-freedink, FSF member/campaign lists, etc. The exception
-list is given in the file `~list/etc/ignorelists.egrep` on lists.  We
-spend about 15 minutes a day x 2 volunteers dealing with the normal
-flow, on average.
+exceptions are those whose administrators explicitly did not want any
+checking, such as FSF member/campaign lists. The exception list is given
+in the file `~list/etc/ignorelists.egrep` on lists. We spend about 15
+minutes a day x 2 volunteers dealing with the normal flow, on average.
 
 On lists.gnu.org, there is a cron entry for user list
-which lists the lists with recent pending messages. (There are many
-other cron entries which are a standard part of mailman installation.)
+which lists the lists with recent pending messages.
 
 Email-based trackers
 --------------------