On 31.01.2011, 22:06 Raymond wrote:
I'm involved in a project that would like to
contact Wikipedia users via
email. I'm wondering whether I will need to get approval from the Bot
Approval Group (BAG) to run a script that will contact up to several
thousand emailable users via the Wikipedia API (to ask users to
participate in a research study.) I'm under the impression that 1)
since I can email users using the API without special privileges and 2)
I wouldn't be making any edits to the Wikipedia, I wouldn't need
approval from BAG. However, is the possibility that my emails will be
construed as spam and my script and account be blocked as a result?
Should I run this scenario by BAG before running my email script?
Mass-mailing IS EXTREMELY frowned upon, your account will be blocked
with 100% certainty (and I'm NOT exaggerating). There are public ways
if you want to inform many people, by emailing you will create nothing
but problems for yourself, there were precendents before.
--
Best regards,
Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])