One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages. This will also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.
I'd like to get a sense from the community what privacy issues or other issues there are in implementing such a feature. We may want to have a user setting for "don't allow email" or something, though I personally would rather not have that feature, and I definitely want it turned off for sysops (a working, responsive email address is the single most important qualification for a sysop as far as I'm concerned, although I suppose active participation on the mailing list might be an acceptable alternative).
I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise the visibility of the mailing list.
0
----- Original Message ----- From: lcrocker@nupedia.com To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 11:11 AM Subject: [Wikipedia-l] "Email this user" function
| One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User | pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be | used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email | address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who | may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages. This will | also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.
I think it's a great idea. I could take my address of my user page and stop it from being harvested my malicious bots.
| I'd like to get a sense from the community what privacy issues or | other issues there are in implementing such a feature. We may want to | have a user setting for "don't allow email" or something, though I | personally would rather not have that feature, and I definitely want | it turned off for sysops (a working, responsive email address is the | single most important qualification for a sysop as far as I'm | concerned, although I suppose active participation on the mailing list | might be an acceptable alternative).
Since the code does not verify email addresses on sign-up anyway I don't think this is such a big issue. The traffic generated would be minimal anyway and should anyone feel annoyed they could just change their address in their user prefs to eg. foo@whatever.ac
| I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise the visibility of | the mailing list.
Well we should somehow bring [[Wikipedia_Announcements]] back to life. The last entry is from May 17!!
regards, [[user:WojPob]]
Sounds good, downside for me is junk mail. Might put posting to the mailing list as an alternative to emailing a user (but that might clutter up the mailing list with lots of details about particular articles).
Another thing. I have had some trouble with control codes (caused by copying to other programs then later pasting to an edit page). They are invisible in edit but then mess up the article. Any way to make them visible while editing?
Fred Bauder
At 02:11 AM 7/11/02 -0700, you wrote:
One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages. This will also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.
I'd like to get a sense from the community what privacy issues or other issues there are in implementing such a feature. We may want to have a user setting for "don't allow email" or something, though I personally would rather not have that feature, and I definitely want it turned off for sysops (a working, responsive email address is the single most important qualification for a sysop as far as I'm concerned, although I suppose active participation on the mailing list might be an acceptable alternative).
I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise the visibility of the mailing list.
0
--- Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Another thing. I have had some trouble with control codes (caused by copying to other programs then later pasting to an edit page). They are invisible in edit but then mess up the article. Any way to make them visible while editing?
It depends on what program you're using to write your articles. MS Word inserts quite a few non-standard characters; I don't recommend it. Try using a pure text editor instead of a word processor.
-- Stephen Gilbert
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I'd also like to brainstorm a bit on how to raise the visibility of the mailing list.
Hmmm. How about announcing its existance on the front page? Or is that too easy a suggestion? :)
--Stephen Gilbert
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lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
One of the post-live features I'd like to implement is a link on User pages for "email this user", which will produce a form that can be used to send email to the user without actually revealing the email address, for those times when you want to talk to someone directly who may not be active on the list or follow the talk pages. This will also help reduce the clutter on talk pages.
There are pros and cons to reducing the clutter on the talk pages, of course. If someone comes along a month later and wonders why a page does or does not mention X, then the talk page can be helpful in reviewing how and why the page is the way it is. So too much private talking about the page makes things less transparent.
On the other hand, just having the ability to email people is great. Maybe I want to ask a question of one of the participants on the talk page, so I post a note to the talk page, but no one from the discussion notices. Sadness. Better to be able to contact them directly.
One thing I think is important -- double opt-in on the email addresses. We don't want anyone to use us as an annoying means of mailbombing someone.
--Jimbo
I'm fully in favor of it. I don't care about keeping my e-mail a secret, though. I still trace my spam like I describe at [1], and have never noticed e-mail getting sent to timc+wikipedia@divide.net. If they try to remove the stuff after the plus sign, it goes in the bit bucket, though, so I wouldn't know about that.
[1] http://makeashorterlink.com/?O3F532E31
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