This is a synopsis from bug 71413 where in developed the idea of leveraging existing features of Mozilla to implement Spam management. Specifically, the idea is to: * Implement filter based on inclusion in specific address book [bug 34340] * Add a new address book called "Blocked Addresses" * Add a UI shortcut to make it easy to modify the [hidden?] filter to do whatever the user wants with messages sent by someone contained in an address book. [bug xxxx] * Make a context menu that just adds addresses to the "Blocked Addresses" address book. The advantages to this approach are: * No need to implement special blocked address management dialogs or code that cannot be reused for other features. * To be able to remove an (accidentally) added address, you have to find it first. If the blocked addresses were a normal address book, you would get this (and many other) features for free. * One bonus feature of using an address book is that we could probably use the address book import/export code to import/export anti-Spam filter lists. Below is a list of noteworthy arguments and counter arguments: * "Devoting an AB to people you want out of your life doesn't seem right." ----- This argument would be much easier to buy, if we didn't already have Collected Addresses with all the spammers' names in it! * "The list of blocked addresses (definitely not in the AB!!! Unless that list is NOT part of the auto complete!) could have columns for: Blocked address, Name (if available), Date Address was Blocked, and Comment. " ----- Of course it would not be autocompleted. But guess what, even if it was, it wouldn' be any worse than now: the Collected Addresses contain all the spammers' addresses already. The fact that we need a list of addresses you don't want to autocomplete against is not a reason to implement a separate list. It's a reason to add this feature to the address books. ----- To me it seems you are now implementing a new address book. The Date field would be very nice in any address book (the others are there already). I was just cleaning up my address books and noticed I had a number of addresses for a single person. It would have been easier to remember which were obsolete and which active, had those been attached with modification dates... * "I never block addresses, I only block domains, so an address book representation of a filter is useless to me." ----- A domain could easily be represent as a card with an email address of *@domain.xxx

Forgot to substitute [bug xxxx] above with [bug 134603]

Correction: [bug xxxx] substitution should be [bug 134602]

See <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71413#c40>, same applies here.

See <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71413#c43>, same applies here.

I'd like to be able to filter incoming mail according to whether the sender is in my Address Book(s). I know that others have requested this already but something needs stressing here, lest it be overlooked. More important than the ability to direct recognised mail to local folders is the ability to consign unrecognised mail straight to the trashcan. That would be an enormously powerful anti-spamming weapon for Mozilla to place in users' hands. The only reason that I use Hotmail, now, is that its "Exclusive" filter lets me trash incoming mail from anyone who is not in my Hotmail address book. It works and my inbox is completely spam-free. I want my mail client to provide a similar service.

*** Bug 176653 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

mass re-assign.

sorry for the spam. making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs. filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

whitelist is available per account and bug 187771 just improved it. black/white list can also be done via filters. is black list the only thing left to implement from this bug?

would blacklist UI be useful?

(In reply to comment #10) > would blacklist UI be useful? > It seems to me that the features requested by this bug are fairly easy to accomplish with the existing functionality. Also, the Bayesian filter will do this automatically to some extent. So I don't think this should be implemented in the core product.

I think this kind of feature would make more sense as an extension for people who wanted more precise control over the automatic bayesian filter. If you look at this in terms of a math problem. The set of (people) email addresses you know is a small set, an extremely small set when compared to all email addresses possible on the internet. This is part of the reason why (in this context) a white list is somewhat manageable and a black list would become very unmanageable very fast. As mentioned it's possible to rely on whole domain blocking and other regex type filters to help keep this black list smaller. However the bayesian system can automatically build these complex filters that your average email user does not understand. So for the people who understand how to build the filters necessary it makes sense to have an extension help that effort, but for everyone else we need good automatic filters. I would recommend a wontfix for this.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71413#c65 is relevant, but doesn't go into detail. I'm inclined to agree wontfix, including considering low #dups and votes here.

Outside of Spam management I think a "filter list" could have real value, possibly helping people filter their inbox of advertisement emails they are receiving. I'm thinking of a filter list as a different case than spam, perhaps they are too similar to separate. But it comes back to the limited number of "legitimate" authors of unsolicited advert like emails (which may be annoying but still desired) vs. large number of random spam mail which are completely unwanted. The separation is in the level of relationship. Something like: People You Know > People You've Interacted With > Spammers. *shrug*