Wikipedia talk:Emailing users

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Graham11 in topic Abuse of email

RfC

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I'm closing this, based on the fact that AutomaticStrikeout said he jumped the gun on this RfC, which I think we can take as a withdrawal. EVula // talk // // 05:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Extended content

Based on some remarks made during a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, I am opening a conversation to discuss whether or not the email feature should continue to exist. -- AutomaticStrikeout 01:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

  • Comment - it is easy to do this anyway. Just frequent WP Indic caste articles then take a look at discussions on Orkut etc. The co-ordination is obvious and frequent. So, do we ask Orkut to shut down? - Sitush (talk) 01:57, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
I wouldn't have even given such a ridiculous objection a response as USEFUL is advice for content discussions and has absolutely no relevance to this discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
Keep Upon giving it further thought, I can see that I jumped the gun here. AutomaticStrikeout 02:09, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep - It is a useful feature, but acknowledge on the email page that everything said in email may be reposted on Wikipedia and is subject to the same Civility policies as any other edit within Wikipedia. -- Avanu (talk) 01:35, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • This is extremely ill-considered. As an admin, I get e-mails all the time on matters that are important but have no business being posted on-wiki; I can't go into detail on any of them, but suffice to say that a lot of things (i.e. dealing with sockpuppets, coordination on any number of issues, oversight requests) are extremely well-served by e-mail. This is a complete non-starter. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep. I can understand the rationale behind this, but it might have some significant collateral damage: for example, serial sockpuppeteers wandering free with legumes up their schnozzes when SPI evidence is left hanging out as a handy how-to guide for avoiding detection. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep Very bad proposal; we practically require admins to have their email enabled, or at least we did in the old days, and for good reason. --Rschen7754 01:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep - especially wrt sock issues, this is an extremely useful facility. I use it rarely but significantly. It is also well-used by, for example, the folks at WP:RX. - Sitush (talk) 01:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Abolish in the name of balance between transparency and privacy. If a certain group of users is organizing something, or debating about policy, or doing anything that may be done by email that can be done on the wiki (and honestly, what DO users do via email that they can't do on the wiki?) than the whole wiki should be allowed to know about it. I also feel that encouraging users to have the EmailUser function discourages editors from becoming users due to privacy concerns about their email, which they feel they have to disclose to advance within Wikipedia; I know the feeling because I had it and decided to move forward without EmailUser anyways, and I do not like the constant feeling that I am "missing out" on aspects of discussions that are being conducted by email. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:50, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep - This is like bringing an industrial strength planer in to fix a problem with a small spinter. You get a piece of sandpaper and fix the problem, not obliteriate entire sheets of the block because of a small problem. Fix the underlying problem of people being rude in emails getting away with it. Hasteur (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Except being rude in emails isn't the only problem. There is the problem of the fact that users are encouraged to basically make their email addresses public information, which is making things too transparent, and also allows for private debates or behind-other-users'-backs conversations that are too private. Transparency and privacy need to be balanced out by abolishing email. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    I don't think you have read anything on WP:EMAIL. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:21, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Please do not accuse me of things. I have read WP:EMAIL and, just to humor you, read it again. Indeed, you are right that I apparently missed the one sentence which clarified that "Wikipedia doesn't encourage such open disclosure". However, the fact that I did not see one sentence does not mean I have not read the page at all. Despite the vibe I have always gotten that the use of EmailUser is necessary anyways, I will strike that portion of my argument. However, the overly-private aspects of EmailUser are uncontrollable and can only be stopped by abolishing EmailUser and balancing privacy and transparency (if you have an alternate solution, I would be open to it, but I cannot think of one). RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Alternatively, one could A) turn off EmailUser (plenty of people do) or B) not respond to any emails sent (thus preventing everything but your email address being shown; further account information is only shown if you choose to respond in the thread). I "accused" you of nothing. I stated that it did not seem to me that you hadn't read the page, based on the wording of your comment. Calm down. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Actually, and I may be misunderstanding you, even if you have EmailUser turned on, your email address is only shown if you reply to an email or send one to somebody. That way, you can have it on, and only respond through email if it is someone who you trust to have your email address. In addition, some editors create special wikipedia emails. Ryan Vesey 05:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Okay, so "don't accuse me" wasn't the phrase I should have used, but rather probably "don't assume things" or something like that. As for your alternative solutions, what I meant by an "alternate solution" is one that changes EmailUser for the community as a whole to protect private information AND stop any discussions that should be public from being private and behind someone's back. I can only think of ending EmailUser as an option for that, but if anyone has a better one, I'm open to it. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 05:33, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep - The email feature is designed to handle issues which due to various reasons cannot be handled on-wiki such as requests for oversighting/hiding of edits containing personal information. It is counter-intuative to be forced to advertise the revealing of personal information in order to have said revealing hidden! Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 01:56, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep I'm not aware of any long running problems with the email feature which would justify its removal. The use of it by a normally very mild-mannered editor to bite back at abuse from another editor (and then apologise for this email the next day) obviously isn't a good reason to remove what's a useful feature. I'd note that as it's impossible to send anonymous emails from this feature, it's easy to follow up on any instances of miss-use. Nick-D (talk) 02:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • keep and a WP:TROUT for opening such an obviously doomed, poorly thought out, frankly stupid proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    "Poorly thought out"? "Frankly stupid"? Whatever happened to civility? RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 02:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    What ever happened to saying your bit and not posting pointy responses to other people's comments? Hasteur (talk) 04:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
    Okay, so it's perfectly okay to make pointy responses against me but when I do it once it's wrong? My apologies if you or anyone else sees me as being uncivil here, but can we all end this pointing and restore civility here? RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 05:11, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep For sensitive issues while e-mail can be pesky to delete, it is no where near as pesky or public as edits. When a certain politician left office, law prohibited them from deleting their e-mails, so they purchased 17 new hard drives and replaced the hard drives. Apteva (talk) 02:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • “frankly stupid proposal.” Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:35, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Strong keep The number of uses for email are immense. My two most recent instances of email were to send somebody a PDF document they requested and to provide somebody with a text file with a list of over 200,000 pages. Neither of these could be done on-wiki. Ryan Vesey 03:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Amusing ArbCom self-aggrandizement

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From their 2007 decision: "2. In the absence of permission from the author (including of any included prior correspondence) or their lapse into public domain, the contents of private correspondence, including e-mails, should not be posted on-wiki. See Wikipedia:Copyrights."

"6. Any uninvolved administrator may remove private correspondence that has been posted without the consent of any of the creators. Such material should instead be sent directly to the Committee."

As if the latter is not a violation of copyrights. Pirating something just for your friends is still piracy. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

email privacy

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Can the contents of a email be published on-wiki? Where is the policy documented? Nobody Ent 23:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

  • These indicate they are[1][2][3][4] Nobody Ent 11:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
    • (1) indicates copyrighting a business letter and then putting it into a mail. That was what I was indicating above, inserting copyrighted material inside an email; (2) talks about copyrighting your email (if it were automatically copyrighted) you would not to get it copyrighted. (3) seems to indicate that all material published over the internet is copyrighted. Copyright protection is a process you have to go through on your website. You have to apply for a copyright first, then your information, including emails faxes or any information that comes from that copyrighted website is copyrighted and (4) I did not log in to answer the question. Mugginsx (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • I looked at your references and gave my opinion. If I am wrong, I'm wrong. My impression was that you have to petition the copyright office or go thru a copyright lawyer to get something copyrighted. Electronic communication must be an exception but I do not see it in the examples you gave which I did read. Yes, according to the information in the Wiki article, and of my own knowledge, if for instance, someone was writing a book, or an article, etc., one could put a "c" on the bottom of each page and it is considered copyrighted, however, until the official petition is returned, someone could conceivably usurp that information and have it printed with no protection unless that you could prove that your work is dated prior to the printing of theirs. What some people would do is send it to yourself and kept it unsealed with registered mail receipt. Mugginsx (talk) 13:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
Your conflating the practical issue of proving your case with the legal issue of whether a work is subject to copyright. Basically any writing that is sufficiently original is subject to copyright on creation. Monty845 16:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
"My impression was that you have to petition the copyright office or go thru a copyright lawyer to get something copyrighted". That is not correct. Under the Berne Convention (which almost all countries are party to), everything is copyrighted as soon as it is put in a fixed/tangible form. Neither registration nor a copyright notice are required. In some countries, registration provides certain benefits, such as statutory damages. Superm401 - Talk 04:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Even without a policy, expect a hostile response if you post private communications on wiki without a compelling reason to do so. Discussing the contents generally is an even bigger gray area. Monty845 16:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Tijfo098, I'm not understanding what you're trying to do here. For one thing, the default rule in this world is that gentlemen don't publicize private correspondence without permission. (Exceptions might be made in some special rare cases, but in those cases its usually better to involve the authorities instead.) Since the Wikipedia is a subset of this world, it inherits this rule unless this is specifically overridden by a local decision (which has not been done, to my knowledge). Reference to failed proposals means little or nothing, since its almost impossible to get a general consensus for anything here; if I wanted to I could propose a policy "It it specifically permitted to publish emails" and when that failed (as it would) I could point to that to counter your examples, but all this would have little meaning.

Rather than focusing on folderol like this, could you explain what good you are trying to accomplish? Can you fill in the blank for the following statement: "On this page we should refrain from discouraging editors from publishing private emails, and this would be a positive benefit to the Wikipedia beause ___________". We're all ears; convince us on the merits. Herostratus (talk) 03:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

"Email this user" edit notice

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Is there a way to have user defined edit notices appear on the "Email this user" function? I ask because I've gotten probably 20 emails over the past few days of editors who are trying to get feedback via using the email function. I'm very hesitant to reveal my email address to random users who found the email button so I attempt to reply on the user's talk page. The problem is I can only refer tangentally to the contents of the email (as it's expected that there is some privacy when a user uses the email function). I'd like to get to a point where the users whose AfCs I decline bring the issue to my talk page instead of using the "Email this user" function. Hasteur (talk) 20:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

You can set up a message to be displayed below the usual edit notice; see for example User:John of Reading/Emailnotice. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:23, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

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Is there anything that's happened on the technical end recently that might be preventing e-mail from working properly? I've had my e-mail address confirmed since 2006 and in the past have been able to e-mail other users with no problem through the "Email this user" feature, but lately everything I send with that tool gets kicked back (even if the user's address itself is perfectly functional and can be reached through a normal e-mail process). –Roscelese (talkcontribs) 17:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Roscelese: Do you use Yahoo! email? See the next section below. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Wbm1058: Thanks for pinging me. I do use Yahoo. Is this something that might eventually be fixed? –Roscelese (talkcontribs) 19:48, 22 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
Who knows, but I sure hope so. I'm on Yahoo as well, so this effects me too. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Not receiving e-mail

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Magiciandude sent me an e-mail regarding a magazine source he has that pertains to an article I am working on. He sent the e-mail twice and I have not received them, I checked my spam folder and nothing. I do get frequent e-mails regarding changes on my talk page. My e-mail is enabled and was confirmed back in September 2012, so I'm not sure what's going on. Best, .jonatalk 20:28, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

@AJona1992: If Magiciandude's email provider is Yahoo or one of the others mentioned in this bug report then at present he won't be able to send any Wikipedia emails. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for clarifying John. Erick if this is true, can you send me the date of the source and I'll look it up (if that's possible). Best, .jonatalk 23:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Are my emails to others logged anywhere?

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I must not have clicked 'send copy to self' when I emailed some folks, am wondering if there's a log anywhere that I can look at to see what the email said. (Long story.) valereee (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Not that you would be able to access, no - logs aren't public, and as far as I know no log would record the email contents anyway. Is it possible for you to ask the recipient(s)? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Nikkimaria: Oh, sure! It's just embarrassing. "Um, I see I have your user talk on my watchlist because apparently I emailed you back in June about something. Do you know what that was about? Just wondering if I can go ahead and take you off my watchlist or whether I'm still awaiting followup." :D Thanks anyway! valereee (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
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Do not post the email on-wiki without permission

This contradicts the statement two sections up, as well as WP:POSTEMAIL, to which it links, that there is no consensus regarding the appropriateness of this activity. The majority of POSTEMAIL is taken up with quoting two isolated ArbCom principles, which strongly suggests that this is not a strong policy point but something ArbCom determined was inappropriate in those specific cases.

If there is no consensus, should we be telling users explicitly not to do it?

Another problem is that WP:POSTEMAIL is a section of the policy on "harassment", whereas the above quote appears in this pages guidelines for dealing with abuse of the email system. If I receive a harassing email from a blocked user, and post its contents on the talk page of the blocking admin, my posting the contents of the email is not an attempt by me to intimidate or harass the user -- in fact it's the opposite.

Hijiri 88 (やや) 02:47, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Dealing with harassment while handling joe jobs and clueless users is tricky. For example, you might send someone an email saying they made a mistake in an edit and you didn't want to embarass them by posting on their talk, but they might like to fix it. What if the recipient posted the full email at ANI, including headers with your email address and any other personal information you included, and (falsely) said you were harassing them? That's why the rule is "do not post an email". The approved method of reporting harassment would be to email an active admin with the details, or to report the situation at ANI with a general statement outlining the situation but without posting the email, and wait for advice. The "there is no consensus" text just means you might get indeffed if you post an email without permission, and you might not, depending on who responds and the circumstances. Johnuniq (talk) 05:17, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

March 2017

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An editor has suggested adding "and you haven't been blocked from using it for sockpuppetry" to the the "Enabling and disabling user email" section, thus giving:

Email is disabled unless you specify a verified email address and you haven't been blocked from using it for sockpuppetry. This can be done either while setting up your account, or in "preferences", at any time.

I dunno if this is necessary or helpful, but anyway its unclear: is it "you have been blocked from using email, because you engaged in sockpuppetry", or "you have been blocked from using email for the purpose of sockpuppetry". Not a big fan of anon IP editing rules and info pages (get an account if you want to do that), so rolled back and the editor is invited to clarify and make his case here. Herostratus (talk) 23:22, 15 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

The IP is just having fun. Ignore it. Johnuniq (talk) 03:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Default subject

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Can we please get rid of the default "Wikipedia email" subject fill-in and force editors to enter their own subject. My inbox will thank you. --NeilN talk to me 15:04, 9 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

allowing no-reply email

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It might be a useful additional feature of the software if it was possible for users to opt in to allow other users to send them email without the sender having to register an email address. Any such email could come from a "no-reply" address, but still contain the username of the sender.

A reasonably obvious use case is Wikipedia:Oversight. Although the content of the message to the team would need to be private, it is probably sufficient for them to reply via a user talk page (or not at all).

In more detail, I suggest the following behaviour:

Sender HAS registered email address Sender HAS NOT registered email address Sender is not logged in
Recipient HAS opted in Sender selects whether to send email from OWN address or from NO-REPLY address Can send email from NO-REPLY address only Cannot send email
Recipient HAS NOT opted in Can send email from OWN address only Cannot send email Cannot send email
Recipient does not accept email Cannot send email Cannot send email Cannot send email

Regards, --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 22:38, 10 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

In terms of Oversight I cannot think of any circumstance where we would reply on-wiki (or elsewhere that is public) regarding an email requesting oversight, regardless of the response. This is for the same reasons requests for oversight should not be posted on-wiki, principally the Streisand effect. This means that a user emailing us from a no-reply address would never get a response from us - this would be potentially problematic if we need more information - e.g. the requester isn't clear about what they feel needs oversight or we need some more background to fully understand the issue. We also sometimes get requests that are outside the scope of the oversight team (e.g. requests for oversight on other projects, requests for checkuser, or other matters not related to oversight), sometimes we can simply forward these on but other times they need to be referred back to the requester and/or they need to be copied in. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 11 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
I concur, for pretty much all of the listed reasons; this isn't a great idea. Primefac (talk) 12:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
Okay thank you for your input. I guess that this conversation can be archived -- unless anyone has anything to add? --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Global email preferences?

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How can I enable some features like disable email or enable it or such globally, for all Wikimedia accounts? --Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 01:10, 14 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Hanyangprofessor2: Preferences --> Global preferences --> Set global preferences I guess? :-) Lotje (talk) 06:11, 14 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

How do I know if someone has an email

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I messaged a user and I fear he has no email --GeometryDashFan12 (talk) 16:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

If the person has no email set you will not be able to message them - Special:EmailUser will give you a "user has not specified a valid email address". You can post a {{ygm}} message on the person's talk page if you're not sure whether they've seen the email. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Page is out of date

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The information about the toolbox menu is out of date.

It says: "Email this user" is available from the "toolbox" on the left of the screen, when any User or User talk page is viewed.

That is simply not true and should be fixed. There is no "Email user" option. Also, the menu is now named "Tools" not "Toolbox as shown in the example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mulehide (talkcontribs) 22:03, 25 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

If the user does not have email enabled, that option will not appear, but if they do have email enabled (e.g. check my userpage) it will appear. Primefac (talk) 22:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
Primefac, The option is not currently on your talk page. It has also vanished from mine, which is rather a nuisance as I have long had it enabled and was hoping to use my email to send info to another user. Any idea why the option has been withdrawn? Tim riley talk 22:01, 1 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Yours is the only user page I do not see "Email this user" in the sidebar. Is it possible you've disabled email and just don't remember? Primefac (talk) 22:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Primefac, as I have said above, the option "Email this user" does not appear on your user page (or mine). I've looked using Chrome, Firefox and Edge browsers - no "Email this user" on your page or mine. Tim riley talk 09:34, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Don't know what to say, if no one else comments it's 1-to-1 works/doesn't. Primefac (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I can verify that I still see the "email this user" link on Primefac's page, and I do *not* see it on yours, Tim riley. Are you sure you haven't accidentally disabled the Allow other users to email me option in Special:Preferences? Writ Keeper  16:11, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
This is very strange indeed. I have just looked at Primefac's page and these are the options I see under Tools:
  • What links here
  • Related changes
  • User contributions
  • User logs
  • Mute this user
  • View user groups
  • Special pages
  • Permanent link
  • Page information
  • Page size
  • Highlight duplicate links
Not a sign of e-mail this user. Most peculiar! Where do we go from here? Tim riley talk 19:57, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I hate to be a putz about this, but you've been asked multiple times and not answered: do you have email enabled on your account, and/or is your account linked to an email address? Primefac (talk) 20:06, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
All the boxes are ticked. Most odd! Tim riley talk 20:12, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Hold on! I don't know what I pressed, but I can now see the "email this user" line on Primefac's page and mine. Sorry if my technical ineptitude has wasted people's time, and thanks for your patience. Tim riley talk 20:44, 5 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

informal question.

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Given some of the discussions at various WP:AC boards, I wondered if this idea was worth floating (perhaps at some WP:VP board)

As it stands now there is the last line in the email this user edit notice:

  • Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

and I wondered if perhaps we should bold that ...

  • Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

thoughts? — Ched (talk) 16:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Abuse of email

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Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Email policy? Graham (talk) 04:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)Reply