Is there a way for filters (in custom views) to use wildcards?

Especially for news subjects, I'd like to be able to reject (via a
custom view) items with a subject that matches some wildcards (e.g. a ?
or * or . to stand for any character, or even perl-like regular
expressions). Is there some way to do this?

It is so I can reject subjects like:

M.I,5`Persecu tion ` M olestation d uring Trav el

and

M,I-5,Persecu tion MI5 a re Afr aid to Admit T heyre Behind t he
Persecutio n

by having a rule that the subject does not contain: M?I?5?Pe

In fact there are a few limitations with the selection method that I may
as well mention here (some of which duplicate things I posted in
nozilla.wishlist 05/05/2007), as seen in my linux 2.0.0.12 version, in
case anyone is working on it...

1. Cannot specify "does NOT contain" for many header fields (that I
added), only "contain", "begins with", etc.

2. Having the option of the Body containing this or that simply does not
work for newsgroup messages (I can see why, but maybe it should have a
warning).

3. There should be some interaction between (custom) views and the junk
facility - I should be able to click on "Junk" and the message
disappears in every newsgroup it is cross-posted to, and it should
optionally allow some appropriate rule to be added to something like a
"not junk" view based on the sender or the subject. So a good "kill
file" facility.

4. I suspect having lots of filter rules makes it quite slow. Something
is certainly making it very slow.

5. Some method of counting cross-posts, etc would be good (especially if
I could produce a score for each posting, where lots of cross-posting
pushes the score in the "junk" direction.



Mark.

Mark Aitchison wrote:[color=blue]
> Especially for news subjects, I'd like to be able to reject (via a
> custom view) items with a subject that matches some wildcards (e.g. a ?
> or * or . to stand for any character, or even perl-like regular
> expressions). Is there some way to do this?[/color]

There is a bug at [url]https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19442[/url] to
add this very feature.
[color=blue]
> It is so I can reject subjects like:
>
> M.I,5`Persecu tion ` M olestation d uring Trav el
>
> and
>
> M,I-5,Persecu tion MI5 a re Afr aid to Admit T heyre Behind t he
> Persecutio n
>
> by having a rule that the subject does not contain: M?I?5?Pe[/color]

The MI5 prosecution spams? I believe those can be filtered out by the
`From' header...

*-* On Wed, 30 Apr 2008, at 17:31:05 +1200,
*-* In Article [email]P5OdnUf30fGHmYXVnZ2dnUVZ_gqdnZ2d@mozilla.org[/email],
*-* Mark Aitchison wrote
*-* About Is there a way for filters (in custom views) to use wildcards?
[color=blue]
> Especially for news subjects, I'd like to be able to reject (via a
> custom view) items with a subject that matches some wildcards (e.g.
> a ? or * or . to stand for any character, or even perl-like regular
> expressions). Is there some way to do this?[/color]
[color=blue]
> It is so I can reject subjects like:[/color]
[color=blue]
> M.I,5`Persecu tion ` M olestation d uring Trav el[/color]
[color=blue]
> and[/color]
[color=blue]
> M,I-5,Persecu tion MI5 a re Afr aid to Admit T heyre Behind
> t he Persecutio n[/color]
[color=blue]
> by having a rule that the subject does not contain: M?I?5?Pe[/color]

I'm not familiar with custom views, but this past January there
was a thread with the subject "Can posts be filtered globally?" which
addressed the matter of filtering the "munged" MI5 posts that were
infesting newsgroups at the time. You might want to read through that
thread for ideas on how to do this.

As a result of that thread, here's what I came up with:

Select the newsgroup or server you wish to filter, click "New..." and
give the filter a name. Then:

For incoming messages that:
Match *all* of the following

Subject begins with M +
Subject contains I +
Subject contains 5 +
Subject contains P +
Subject contains e +
Subject contains r +
Subject contains s +
Subject contains c +
Subject contains u +
Subject contains t

Perform these actions:

Delete Message

If you want to also filter out any replies to these posts, create
a second filter similar to the above, except that the first criterion
should be:

Subject begins with Re: M +

with everything else (except the filter name) the same.

Ken Whiton

FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: [email]kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVA[/email]L (remove the obvious to reply)

*-* On Wed, 30 Apr 2008, at 13:02:20 -0400,
*-* In Article [email]1vadnTv8VbOBO4XVnZ2dnUVZ_tXinZ2d@mozilla.org[/email],
*-* Joshua Cranmer wrote
*-* About Re: Is there a way for filters (in custom views) to use
wildcards?
[color=blue]
> Mark Aitchison wrote:[/color]

[ ... ]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> It is so I can reject subjects like:[/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> M.I,5`Persecu tion ` M olestation d uring Trav el[/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> and[/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> M,I-5,Persecu tion MI5 a re Afr aid to Admit T heyre Behind t he
>> Persecutio n[/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> by having a rule that the subject does not contain: M?I?5?Pe[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> The MI5 prosecution spams? I believe those can be filtered out by
> the `From' header...[/color]

That used to be the case, but the flood that appeared last
December and January used multiple, changing, semi-random sender
names, making filtering on the "From:" header difficult, if not
impossible. It also used "munged" "Subject:" lines, similar to those
Mark gave above.

Ken Whiton

FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: [email]kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVA[/email]L (remove the obvious to reply)