Why is GNATs refusing my posts?

[Thomas Sandford]

I recently tried to send a PR (for an updated port), and got the following 
response:

--- 8<---------------
This is a canned auto-reply to your recent email to the bug submission 
address.

Your message has been identified as likely spam and has been discarded.

If you feel this is an error, please submit your report via the web
interface or directly on the freebsd-bugs mailing list.

--- 8<---------------

Frankly this is just DUMB. Autoresponding to (as opposed to bouncing) spam 
is most likely going to hit someone other than the spammer.

It gives me ZERO information as to why the mail system didn't like my post, 
so I have no means of working out what I should change to appear less like a 
source of spam.

Since the mail sent was a properly formatted PR (generated by 
devel/porttools), and the mail system got as far as accepting my email 
before generating an autoresponse, it could/should at least have parsed the 
email to see if it looked like a PR before rejecting it.


Furthermore it doesn't even seem to be consistent, since a PR submitted the 
self same way about 4 days ago got through just fine.

I've now got to rewrite the "description" part of the bug submission (since 
it didn't copy my message back to me) and try and work out a way of getting 
past the filter (there's no point in trying to submit the PR through the 
web, as the web form clearly states "Note: copy/paste will destroy TABs and 
spacing, and this web form should not be used to submit code as plain 
text.").

Spam is a major, worldwide problem - but transferring the problem to someone 
else is NOT a solution.

Oh - and if you hadn't guessed - this has really cheesed me off!
-- 
Thomas Sandford