On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 11:19:12 -0400 Harry Putnam wrote: > SA is letting mail thru as ham that should be spam apparently based on > what is too low a score (for my mail) for URIBL_JP_SURBL which was > 1.9 by default. > > I pushed it up to 4. > > But then I see a report that shows a total score of 4.9 when > 4.0 is shown for URIBL_JP_SURBL > 1.0 is shown for SPF_SOFTFAIL > > But the total score is 4.9. > ------- --------- ---=--- --------- -------- > I assumed it had something to do with rounding or something so I > increased the score to 4.1 to get that message to break the spam level > of 5. > > Now the same mail shows a total of 5.1 > > 4.1 is shown for URIBL_JP_SURBL > 1.0 is shown for SPF_SOFTFAIL > > So what happened..? in one case a point (.1) is dropped and in the > other it is not.
It's odd that 2 people should notice this almost simultaneouly when it's been around for years (see "Score = 4.9" ) I had a look into it, and it seems that rounding is handled in an unusual way. It starts by rounding to the nearest 0.1, and then subtracts 0.1 if the result is non-spam to avoid the case of: X-Spam-Status: No, score=5.0 required=5.0 IMO simply rounding towards zero using int would be better. I think most people understand rounding, this is a lot more disconcerting. None of this affects the result though, it's just what's displayed in the headers.
