Hiding contact information

Has anyone else noticed that TMW is pretty liberal about disclosing "hidden" email addresses. If you select to contact an individual who has hidden his/her "Community E-mail Address", then, you get a little text box and do not see the email addresses. If all works well, you never learn the individuals email address. If however, something goes wrong in the email delivery or the receiver has a vacation message, the returned email, is sent directly to you with the email address revealed. Doesn't seem so hidden to me.

[Jan]

+1. The process of sending personal messages does not protect privacy.

[Helen Chen]

Thanks for pointing out the vacation message use case. I hadn't thought of that before and will be discussing with the MATLAB Central developers.

If there are other use cases that you can share, please feel free to drop me a note so that I can track the concerns.

[Daniel Shub]

I wish this had been fixed by now. I get emails asking me questions and have no way to privately respond to them.

[Jan]

I'm surprised that the number of persons suffering from this spam mailing seems to be very limited. While implementing a message system inside the forum means substantial work, TMW has decided not to add more impressing instructions for formatting code and a link to the "how to write a good question".

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

The interface change now makes it clear that your email address is being revealed. While I would like a way to respond to queries anonymously, at least the system is clear about what is happening.

Answer 2

[Jan]

A vacation message is not a good idea for an email address, which should be hidden. There is nothing that can be done by TWM in this case.

Some other forums use a message system on the server, such that the users only get a notification mail. This hides the personal email address and in times of spam flooding this is more user-friendly.

I recieve (too) many mails containing commands to solve a specific problem. If I reply directly, my email address is revealed. But I can copy the user name from the header and search in the list of contributors to create a reply through the web interface. This is not convenient.

[Daniel Shub]

Are you sure you email address is hidden when you send a message through the web interface ...

[Jan]

No, the address from the sender is included in the message.

Please add this to Walter's wish-list.

[Walter Roberson]

Yep. It'll be #103. http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections

[Daniel Shub]

@Walter, I am probably just being dense ... Are you suggesting that this is already in the wish list as:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#answer_103

or that I need to add it?

[Jan]

@Daniel: You are the author of this important suggestion. If you append it to Walter's list, I'm going to vote for it. It would be enough to post a link to this thread, but it is helpful for the TMW team, if the suggestions are collected in one thread.

[Daniel Shub]

Thank you, I have added it. I couldn't tell from Walter's comment if it was already there. Despite English being my first (and only language), it is sometimes difficult for me.

[Daniel Shub]

@Jan, I would suggest you edit the last few lines of your answer since it appears that replying via the web interface is not "safe".

[Walter Roberson]

"It'll" means "it will", future tense, after you add it.

[Helen Chen]

@Jan - Thanks for the example from other forums. The copy and paste workaround is also pointer for me to look at.

@All - Good feedback, many thanks!

[Jan]

I'm surprised about the lean reaction to this question.

I do not see a way to get rid of the annoying mails of users, who think that I should feel responsible to solve their problem soon. None of these mails contained a link to the question in the forum. Having only the forum name is not helpful sometimes, because the names are not unique.

[Walter Roberson]

For me, the email MATLAB questions from people I do not know get held in the same folder that accumulates the messages telling me that I've won the Microsoft lottery, or the ones asking me to spend my winnings on implausible body modifications. I could, if I choose, get rid of them all with a pair of clicks, "Delete All", "Confirm".

Not that I do that, but I could. With my email address out in public in more than 25,000 places already, hiding it here would merely increase the chance that any given email message I receive is spam, and decrease the chance that any given email message I receive might happen to be something interesting.

[Jan]

@Walter: You are right. I do not have problems with the anonymous spam mails from the net, too. They want to get my money, I do not want to release it - clear frontiers.

But here I voluntarily spend answers and the "answer my question soon" mails are impudent. The "Contact" link on the Answer's profile page is obviously an invitation for such messages. The same button on the FEX author's page does not cause troubles for me. It seems, like there are less "idiots" (from the Greek "idiotais": do not care about concerns of the community) in the FEX than in the Answers forum. Facing the facts would solve my problem also.

Answer 3

[Jan]

BUMP

I still get too much annoying emails from users of this forum:

 I want your answer to my question soon/immediately/urgently/asap!

In addition these mails do not contain a link to the question, such that there are 5 ways to react:

1. Polite: Reply, that I do not reply. Then I offer my personal email address to people, who obviously do not care about the personal interest of others. Will these people sell my email address to spammers?
2. Semi-polite: Copy the name of the authoer from the header of the mail, search in the list of contributors, decide for one of the authors if the name is not unique and post "please do not send mails to me" as a comment.
3. Quiet, but with effort: Delete the mails manually.
4. Quiet and cool: Let the spam filter delete all mails starting with "[MATLAB Central]". But I get important mails using this header from time to time. So I should create a policy like: Delete all from "[MATLAB Answers]..." except there is a "@mathworks" in the author's address.
5. Secretive: Remove the contact address from my profile.

None of these points is sufficient for me. I'd prefer the following strategies:

1. A communication system for personal mails inside the forum interface. Than my personal mail folder is not poluted.
2. A radio-button in the contact form: "1. This message is personal", or "This message concerns the following thread:". In the first case the author has to supply his/her mail address, in the second case a link to the thread must be given.

The current system is a penalty for frequent contributors, who want to care about the 1% to 5% serious mails sent through the contact form. In addition it is an additional contribution to the world-wide junk-mail problem.

[Daniel Shub]

It has only been 5 months, we shouldn't expect radical changes in that time frame. I just hope by the time that Answers is in a truly usable state that there are frequent contributors left.

[Jan]

Dear Daniel, I'm not a native speaker and my analysis of the tone just by reading the words are sometimes poor. Am I right, that you do not write exactly what you mean?

It seems like only you and me have problems with current method, or perhaps the others have decided to leave the forum.

Would it help to reduce the number of push-mails, if my name does not appear so prominent in the list of frequent contributors? Perhaps I find a way to reset my reputation number, but keep the editor status, by choosing a new forum name?

[Daniel Shub]

Your English is better than you give yourself credit for. I think I have written exactly what I mean. For clarification: TMW have demonstrated that they are willing to change the site based on user feedback, but that their quality control mechanisms result in a long lead time. I think it is clear that we should not expect items on the wish list to be addressed in less than 6 months. I think what you have picked up on is that I think the time it takes TMW to implement changes is ridiculous.

Potentially you (and some of the other editors) should change your email address to [e-mail] for a few days.

[Jan]

@Daniel: Sorry, of course you have written what you mean. I just could not decide, if your message included sarcasm, irony, exaggeration or was simply your impartial estimation.

I'm sure that Helen gets much more junk mails than I do.

Answer 4

[Jan]

I want to BUMP this question.

Sometimes it would be useful to contact other users without revealing my email address, especially if they have attracted negative attention in the forum already.

I did not include my personal or professional email address in my Matlab profile, but a special address, which I can change if it is flooded by spam. But I was warned by a TMW member, that such impersonal addresses violate the policies and that the corresponding account could be deleted.

Therefore I have the need for two enhancements:

1. The possibility to use a 2nd independent email address in the forums (e.g. in the FEX also)
2. A web-based message system inside the forum, which stores e.g. up to 10 messages for each user. Then messages from the forum will not disturb the work outside the forum anymore.

[Walter Roberson]

?? Huh ?? The field is just "community email address". Why would it be against policies to have a different email address for the MATLAB community?

I have plans to switch my community email address to a new domain, and to use email addresses with unpredictable components; those plans will be affected by this policy I have not heard of before. (In September, my email peaked at over 600 messages per day because there are so many copies of my email address on the 'net, so I am working towards using an unpredictable component that I would expire from time to time.)

[Image Analyst]

I think you heard wrong. You can't have two accounts tied to the same license number, and I think you can't have two different accounts with the same email. But you can have an account not tied to a license, and an account tied to a license with a different email address than the first. Nonetheless, I vote for your suggestion #2 - it's a good idea for those who wouldn't mind receiving email related to forum activity and ONLY related to their forum activity (unlike me who has an email for this forum somewhere that I totally ignore).

[Walter Roberson]

You can have two accounts tied to the same license number, in different capacities. It happens all the time with the commercial licenses. Installer / admin, user, account manager.

The community email account is set up as a different account field than the email account for license administration purposes.

[Daniel Shub]

Why do we even need personal messages? We allow a fair amount of discussion on the board as is. The issue I have is I get emails and have no way of responding. I think it is rude not to respond, but I won't reveal my email to do it.

[Jan]

@Daniel: I have a need for personal messages, e.g. when I've missed Matt Fig here, when personal payed assistence is wanted or when a question contains the instruction for breaking the license conditions without any evil intention. I've even sent messages to you to discuss topics, which are not appropriate for a forum.

[Lindsay Coutinho]

@Jan, your MathWorks Account email needs to be a valid email address and requires verification. However, we allow you to enter a separate community email which is used for all MATLAB Central correspondence. This can be different from your MathWorks Account email and does not require being verified. You can edit your Community Profile here http://www.mathworks.com/mwaccount/profiles/edit. Hope this helps clarify.

Answer 5

[Sean de Wolski]

This would be an interesting phenomenon to study. I have never gotten an urgnt doit4me email since starting at MathWorks in November. In fact I think I only ever got a few before that with my old email and that was posted all over CSSM.

Here are some possible explanations:

1. I'm not high enough on the contributor list.
2. I don't answer certain questions (luck?).
3. I post my email address but provide the spam block REMOVE in it.

I'm guessing number three has the most weight in that it's easier to copy the email than to click contact. If you are not a native speaker of English, or are truly in a hurry, it might not be apparent that you need to remove certain letters.

[Walter Roberson]

I think Jan might be getting more of the messages than I do.

Jan, try replacing your avatar with something less smiling and handsome. Maybe something like the Burt Simmons image at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV4W1FJXD0s

[Image Analyst]

Lots more good choices here: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=scary+faces&FORM=BIFD#x0y0

I just use a spam catcher account at mailinator. I never check it and it doesn't accept attachments, doesn't let me reply lest I be tempted to. It creates mailboxes instantly as message come in, and has no password. Anyone at all can see my emails at [e-mail], but I'm never ever bothered by people replying to me personally.

[Jan]

I've uploaded a new avatar and it is visible after 19 hours (UTC 20:50). I've checked this on the contributors page and saw, that I got about 1500 additional reputation points since yesterday. Is this a bonus for the new picture? I cannot compete with the scary examples of your youtube or bing examples. But it is less "handsome", isn't it?

I giving Sean's contact method a try also: I think he gets the same number of push-mails than I do, but they are sent to the wrong address.

[Walter Roberson]

Wow, that 1500 reputation boost is strange!

Your new avatar hasn't made it to over here yet.

[Jan]

The reputation boost appeared after I've written, that I think of trying to reset my reputation number. It looks like a decent kind of humor.

[Walter Roberson]

The new avatar is here now!

[Jan]

Whoops. now I see the old avatar again. But I still have much more points than I expect.

The Matlab-Answers database is not so large that I expect such inconsistencies. While the reputation boost is most likely just a small bug as in every software, the strange behavior of the avatar seems like a weak update method in a database distributed to several servers. When I open this page through the Nethderlands, I see the new avatar: http://www.mathworks.nl/matlabcentral/answers/16691-hiding-contact-information .

[Jan]

@Walter: You have suggest to replace my avatar "with something less smiling and handsome". Now, half a year later, I can confirm that your suggest has been successful! Thank you very much! In the last 4 month I got only 4 mails from froum users, who want to get their problems solved privately or urgently. Fine.

[Sean de Wolski]

Jan, please make that an answer since it certainly appears to work :) !

[Daniel Shub]

@Sean while Jan's observation is reasonable, it is not an answer to my question.

[DGM]

So this is the moment where Jan's avatar was formed. I feel like I've stumbled upon the answer to a great mystery.