bogus bogotuning

[David Relson]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 06:40:30 -0500
Greg Louis wrote:

> On 20040127 (Tue) at 1504:51 -0800, Greg McCann wrote:
> > On 1/27/2004 at 5:23 PM Greg Louis <glouis at dynamicro.on.ca> wrote:
> > 
> > ...
> > >If that option is there, it will be used.  If it is used, laymen
> > >will get useless suggestions from bogotune and will get lousy
> > >results with bogofilter.  Should we clutter the code with bad
> > >options and then say,"actually this is a bad thing, don't use it"?
> > ...
> > 
> > I don't have an opinion on the merits of this particular option, but
> > lots of software has "dangerous" options (either runtime, config, or
> > compile-time) that should only be used by those who know what they
> > are doing.  Sendmail's "DONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL" and netcat's
> > "GAPING_SECURITY_HOLE" come to mind.  I think the option should be
> > judged by its potential usefulness to a knowledgeable user rather
> > than the fact that someone who doesn't know what they are doing
> > might use it inappropriately.
> 
> I argue, precisely, that anyone who understands what bogotune does and
> how it works would not use this option.  With that few messages, the
> user is safer to stick with bogofilter's default parameter values (or
> with values obtained elsewhere on a reasonably sized corpus). 
> Although anyone can make the one-line change that David suggested, I
> think it sends the wrong message altogether if we offer it officially.

And I agree. 

A hammer is a tool that works great on nails. You can also use it to
pound your finger.  But is that really what you want?

Bogotune is also a tool.  Please use it as intended :-)

David