Problem with SpamAssassin rules wiki. What is the new link ?

[Antoine Chiris <an...@probance.com>]

Dear SpamAssassin users/team,

I have a little problem with *SpamAssassin*. I don't find the documentation
for the rules.

For example, for the rule MIME_HTML_MOSTLY I have a link to this wiki :
https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Rules/MIME_HTML_MOSTLY But apparently
the documentation is no longer available and I don't find the new link.

If you look in the archives of the apache wiki (
web.archive.org/web/20170913151929/https://wiki.apache.org/…
<http://web.archive.org/web/20170913151929/https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Rules/MIME_HTML_MOSTLY>),
there's a good explanation for that message.

Do you know if this wiki is still available? Is there a new link for this
wiki ?

Thanks in advance.


-- 
ANTOINE CHIRIS
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Re: Problem with SpamAssassin rules wiki. What is the new link ?

[Bill Cole <sa...@billmail.scconsult.com>]

On 9 Apr 2020, at 5:12, Antoine Chiris wrote:

> Dear SpamAssassin users/team,
>
> I have a little problem with *SpamAssassin*. I don't find the 
> documentation
> for the rules.

The definitive documentation of the rules that are distributed as part 
of the project is the rules files themselves. Most rules have (and all 
*should* have) a 'describe' line

> For example, for the rule MIME_HTML_MOSTLY I have a link to this wiki 
> :
> https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Rules/MIME_HTML_MOSTLY But 
> apparently
> the documentation is no longer available and I don't find the new 
> link.

That's true.

The wiki was mostly migrated to the ASF Confluence instance recently and 
is now at https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/SPAMASSASSIN/. The 
old rules descriptions (which had not been maintained since v3.3) were 
not migrated, as they were largely outdated where they were not 
redundant.

I don't have a definitive reference for the decision to stop maintaining 
rule descriptions on the wiki, so there may be a more correct 
explanation out there in the heads of the people who were on the PMC at 
the time. However, my view is that this was the right decision because 
of how the default rules are managed. Rules can shift in and out of the 
update channel based on the automated QA process, and there is a 
continuous trickle of new rules, rule changes, and rule deletions coming 
from the development team that get integrated (or not) via RuleQA. There 
was never a functional process for maintaining the wiki pages for rules 
properly in conjunction with that continuous change process, and the 
descriptions were mostly not much more illuminating than the 'describe' 
lines in the rules files.


> If you look in the archives of the apache wiki (
> web.archive.org/web/20170913151929/https://wiki.apache.org/…
> <http://web.archive.org/web/20170913151929/https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/Rules/MIME_HTML_MOSTLY>),
> there's a good explanation for that message.
>
> Do you know if this wiki is still available? Is there a new link for 
> this
> wiki ?

As I noted above, the SA wiki is now at 
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/SPAMASSASSIN/ but it no 
longer contains any collection of pages that purports to be 
documentation of the individual rules.


-- 
Bill Cole
bill@scconsult.com or billcole@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire