Make podmin e-mail public

I was working on personalizing my pod today, and I wanted to put the e-mail used to signal a problem on the home page. It was at the bottom of the page and I thought I should put it in the footer. I created a PR doing that, but Jonne pointed that it can be possible that podmins don’t want their email public.

What do you think? Is that a problem? This address is used to point problems to podmins. Some problems need to be reported without having to log in. Do you agree to see your podmin email public ?


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I’m not a podmin yet, but I’m planning to become one, and I wouldn’t want my email public.

Even for those who don’t mind, if their email address is en clair on the home page, which can be seen without logging in, it could be harvested by spammers.

I’d think a form would be better, which can be filled in and which will reach the podmin, but which doesn’t involve the email address being made public.

The form is not a solution against spam, and seriously, after spending a whole evening sending mails to journalists to inform them about the anniversary, I can say it : I HATE CONTACT FORMS. They never work, you never know if the message will really be received, it’s horrible.

Remember @goob, the e-mail is the one used to support users, not your personal one. It’s podmin@diaspora-fr.org for me.

The email is already public? At least on my pod it’s just a button with a mailto: link.

Personally I would make it a requirement for pods to specify a contact email and other details of the podmin - but that’s just me :slight_smile:

@jasonrobinson hmm, where can logged out users see it?

@jonnehass good point - didn’t read things well enough my bad.

I agree a way to contact the podmin in problem cases should be given even if not logged in. So I think this is towards the right direction.

But of course if we do pull this is - a warning should be sent to podmins to make sure they have the email set up that they are ok with to display. It’s so easy setting up a separate account for the pod that I don’t think “I don’t want my email to be visible” is a very good argument.

I don’t think that the podmin’s e-mail should be public, however a contact form should be possible to implement, mainly to reduce the risk of spam for our beloved podmins.

Mmmm maybe… https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/blob/develop/config/diaspora.yml.example#L351

#userspod_podmin_email: 'podmin@example.org'
#public_podmin_email: 'anotherpodmin@example.org'

I think a contact form with a captcha will be the best way. And there is also the webmaster@domain adress.

@movilla I don’t see why there should be two podmin emails if the podmin email is separate from the podmin user account anyway? It’s just a contact address - podmins can use webmaster@domain address if they want.

Ravenbird - domain admins don’t automatically set up a webmaster address even though it is recommended. That cannot be trusted.

I’d say we vote on form vs email. It’s opt-in anyway for podmins.

Proposal: Visitors should be able to contact podmin by e-mail without being logged

It’s important to be able to contact the podmin to point a problem. And problem can be “I do not success to sign in or to register”, “invitation link doesn’t work”… and in these cases, the user is not logged in, that’s why he has to have a way to contact the podmin directly.

I propose to use e-mail and not a contact form because contact form are always limited (no attachment, no information about the reception of the message…)

This implies to put the podmin contact e-mail public. The e-mail is already accessible to every user, it’s definitely not a private one. We just have to be careful with spam.


Outcome: We will not put the e-mail public

Votes:

  • Yes: 13
  • Abstain: 8
  • No: 13
  • Block: 1

Note: This proposal was imported from Loomio. Vote details, some comments and metadata were not imported. Click here to view the proposal with all details on Loomio.

These are important e-mails that I need notification of right-away. I want to use my non-spam address which means that it must absolutely be a contact form.

My email hosting plan has only one email address. I would like not to have to addresses (one for public and one for logged in users).

I think it is a good thing to have a public email address for those not logged in or registered, but to consider spamming before implementing it.

I cannot believe you all are voting to force podmins to use an e-mail address that won’t get checked for this otherwise great idea. This should be as a contact form.

StarBlessed

I think while the idea of being able to contact the podmin directly for support is a must, I think that the originally posted idea is ill conceived, and not thoroughly thought out.

  1. Publicly exposing ANY email address turns that address into a defacto “Honeypot” for spammers
  2. Nobody likes Captcha’s

Is there any way we can come up with another form of contact? Perhaps an offline xmpp/jabber message? Or maybe a bitmessage?

@goob the podmin has free choice - it is not compulsory to add your email to the configuration. Also you can add any email you want, maybe a separate email box.

Jason, you’re correct that this is the current situation. However, this proposal would seem to remove that free choice, and to make it compulsory for podmins to provide an email address at which they can be contacted.

We need to be careful not to put any more hurdles than there already are in the way of prospective podmins. If a podmin is automatically given an email address (e.g. podmin@podname.org) when they set up their pod, without them having to install an email server or anything, that could be a solution. Otherwise as part of setting up my pod I’d have to set up and maintain another email address, yada yada, it could be off-putting.

If the proposal is ‘give podmins the choice to make their email available to non-logged-in people’, that’s something different entirely, but it doesn’t appear to be that.

Podmins can make a special email for issues. I don’t see why it should be private.

Hi, just to add something.
Why not give podmins the possibilty to add their contact info on podupti.me? We want poduptime more prominently available for new users, so why not extend it a bit?

@jellelangbroek I like that a lot. :slight_smile: Maybe it’s something we can just encourage podmins to do?