Voting now open: Proposed policy on email addresses in WikiTree profiles and G2G posts

Question

There's been a lot of recent discussion about email addresses in WikiTree profiles. A day or so ago I suggested a first draft for a policy on this subject (extending to G2G). There were many helpful responses, including from Ros, Melanie, Christine, Dennis, Edison, Jamie, and Danielle, which considerably clarified the position.

I would now like to offer a second draft, including numerous corrections and improvements arising from these comments.

Voting for and against the second draft becoming an official policy, or being further amended, is now open.

As usual, to allow an accurate vote without double counting, please upvote at most one of the three numbered answers 1, 2 or 3, and don't downvote.

Policy on email addresses in WikiTree profiles and G2G posts (draft 2)

The purposes of this policy are (a) to explain why restrictions on public mention of email addresses are necessary; (b) to document what those restrictions are, and what you asked to do and not do; and (c) to describe ways you can continue to work without mentioning email addresses.

Email addresses should not appear anywhere on WikiTree profiles. They should also not occur in G2G posts. Mentioning email addresses publicly is a breach of privacy, with potential serious consequences for individuals; it can also generate spam.

Since March 2021, WikiTree editing software has prevented email addresses being newly added to profile biography text, or placed in the "Explain Your Changes" box. You cannot save your edit in these cases. If you edit a profile which contains an existing email address, you will see a yellow warning sign when you save; you are encouraged to remove the email address. Moreover, comments and memories on profiles cannot be saved if they contain email addresses.

G2G software does not automatically prevent email addresses in questions, answers or comments, but inserting them should be avoided for the same reasons as above.

Please do not attempt to get around these restrictions by disguising email addresses. For example, most humans and many spambots are capable of recognising email addresses modified by inserting spaces, or by changing "@" to "at" and "." to "dot".

There are mechanisms in WikiTree and G2G that help to avoid the need for email addresses.

• You can send a private message via a web form to any profile manager, including a project, by clicking on the link "[send private message]" next to the manager's name on the profile. Your own email address will be provided to the recipient so they can reply to you. See Sending Private Messages.
• You can ask to be added to the trusted list of a profile by selecting "request to join the Trusted List" in the Collaboration section or on the Privacy tab of the profile. The manager will be emailed a link which they can click to add you if they so choose. Again your own email address will be included, so that the manager can send you any questions they have. See Adding to Trusted Lists. Project leaders can use this approach to request that the project account be added to the trusted list of a profile.
• When answers and comments are posted on G2G, an email copy is automatically sent to earlier participants in the thread, unless they have chosen to turn this off. There is no need to mention your email address; everybody who is interested can reply with a G2G comment, and you will be emailed.
• Instead of putting email addresses in sources, options include: removing or redacting them; for an institution, a URL link to a contact web page; and for an individual, a link to their WikiTree profile (perhaps just a dormant guest one) so they can receive private messages as described above.

Following this policy is important above all for protection of privacy, and additionally to limit email spam.

Edited to mention the Trusted List request link in the Collaboration section, as suggested by Danielle.

Edited again to include fourth bullet point, on avoiding email addresses in sources.

Edited to open voting.

Comments

Jim, you should amend your text, to ''click here to request to join the Trusted List'' in the Collaboration section, not the Privacy tab, which doesn't have this function in it.

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Thanks Danielle. The Privacy tab does not have that link if you are already the profile manager, but it does if you're not. But the Collaboration section is probably a quicker way to find it, so I shall make a change.

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After 48 hours, there has only been one vote—opposing a blanket restriction (thank you for voting, Julie). No support was expressed for the draft becoming an official policy or help page. On the other hand, perhaps near silence indicates a degree of acceptance of the privacy measures.

Nonetheless I feel we learned a lot, and this G2G page may continue to be useful as reference documentation of the de facto position at the current date.

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Thank you for leading this discussion, Jim!

We added the text, slightly simplified, to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Email_Addresses

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Thank you, Chris! It's good to have the privacy requirement documented.

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I am looking at this thread and wondering if the sequence of events involved posting the proposal, then hiding the voting options for a few days to allow for discussion, and then editing the original post to declare the voting open a few days later?  If so, and no new answer was posted, the topic would have already migrated far down into the bowels of G2G.  I suspect the reason there was only one vote was that the proposal was well under the radar by voting time, and most of us never knew the status had changed.

I'm not suggesting you reopen this, since the outcome probably wouldn't change, but for future proposals, it may be worth a look at the process for soliciting votes.

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Hi Dennis. This is an understandable concern. However, perhaps it can be allayed by noting that both editing the question and reshowing the answers brought the question back (temporarily) to the top of the Recent Activity list. I checked that this was the case. There were about 40 views in the 48 hours after that; not very many, but enough to show that the question was visible. I think by that point many people had moved on from the topic; indeed as I mentioned there was only one vote in the 48 hours, from those 40 views. (I posted and hid the numbered answers initially so they would be above not below other answers when the time came to vote.)

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Many of us don't read g2g so frequently. Making a decision in 48 hours is a bit extreme. I've never seen a proposal move that fast.

Answer 1

1) Please upvote this answer if you support the draft being published as it stands as part of official WikiTree policy, for example in a help page. If you wish, you can say why you support this in a comment below this answer.

Comments

There is no need that I can see to post your email address, or God forbid someone else's, on view for all and sundry to see.

Any measures that attempt to thwart identity theft can only be for the good.

I do understand that some sources can point to documents that may have email addresses but they are not on WikiTree and are not the responsibility of WikiTree users.

Answer 2

2) Please upvote this answer if you support the draft being published as part of official WikiTree policy, but only after amendment. Please describe the changes you would like in a comment below this answer.

Answer 3

3) Please upvote this answer if you do not support the draft being published as part of official WikiTree policy. It would be helpful if you could please explain why not in a comment below this answer.

Comments

I don't think it's reasonable or necessary to prohibit all e-mail addresses on WT.  If it's a matter of privacy, then there is no reason to stop people from posting their own addresses, or requesting that their addresses appear in source citations.

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P.S.  I wonder if it would be possible to create a message that would pop up when people add e-mail addresses to posts, telling them that if it is theirs, they risk receiving spam, and if it is not theirs, they should be sure and have permission?

Answer 4

I would just like to mention that emails are often placed in citations for online materials, listserve messages and correspondence as recommended in Evidence Explained. I would not like anyone reprimanded or otherwise severely punished or removed from partiicipating on wikitree for following this guide in error of the policy. (Including myself, I will go through my old citations from correspondence from 20 years ago as I can I think of them.)

I do think it's important to cite things properly. I see it's been addressed here:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1195176/email-addresses-automatically-removed-from-comments

A workaround has been suggested but then in the policy workarounds are forbidden. So clarity on this in the policy would be helpful as well as suggestions for these citations.

Also, don't misunderstand my intent. I understand how something like this would be necessary, even if it mars citations considering what was done on the site more recently when the EU enacted tighter online privacy.

Comments

Thank you for the thoughtful answer, Dina. If and when you find some precise examples, perhaps you could please give a reference to them (without quoting the email address here, obviously:-)

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I tried looking for examples along the lines you suggested, Dina. If you do a Google search for "site:wikitree.com listserve", you get a lot of profiles. Some of them just mention the name of a listserve group. Some contain phrases like "listserve message to <e-mail address>", with the personal email address already hidden. Hiding the email address like that is sufficient to meet the suggested policy.

If instead you do the slightly different search "site:wikitree.com listserv", you do see some profiles with actual email addresses. For example, there is one with a source containing 'Givenname Surname <email-address> on ILSTANNE listserv, "Re:Searching for benoit," Mon, 7 Oct 2002 08:32:33 EDT'. This time the real given and surname and a real 2002 personal email address do appear on the profile (I have redacted them myself for this G2G comment). But again, does the real email address really have to appear in the source? Couldn't it just be hidden? The given name, surname, date and time could be left intact, and should be sufficient to find the listserv message if necessary.

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Hi Dina,  I understand where you're coming from, but as I mentioned in the prior G2G on this, one source citation for my area had an e-mail in it.  When I looked at the need for it to be there, as far as fullness of citation, I realized it was 20 years old.  Not even sure the man is still with that university.  

E-mails get changed by people regularly also, so it's not a primary source citation by any means.  Even web-sites change over time, new people working in a place decide to change how things are presented, new technology comes along, or even just a new set of computers, and oops!  the links to a source which were perfectly valid no longer work.  Have one important source in my area that was a University program, they published a whole lot of material online.  Then the program ended and they did not transfer their database to another party, it is no longer online.  (PREFEN)

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There is another thread containing discussion of email addresses in sources: start at this link.

"Official" statements on the matter seem to be here, here including subsequent comments, and here.

For the record, my intention has not been to try to be an arbiter, but to document the complicated situation through the policy proposal, so that we all understand it as well as possible, and can eventually express opinions by voting.

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I've edited the draft to add three ways for dealing with email addresses in sources. I understand that not everybody is happy with these, but they seem to be the best options available at present.

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I realized AFTER deleting the e-mail addresses in order to save my changes to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Massie-46 that it removed all trace of the e-mail addresses through all the changes, not just my changes.

See https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Massie-46&diff=prev&oldid=34668789 & https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Massie-46&diff=122989421&oldid=119116978

Wish I had realized that would happen before I hit save. I would've captured the addresses and sent them to the Profile Manager who had added them.

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OK, I have an example. In connection with the current WikiTree challenge, I have edited some pre-existing profiles that cite the document at http://www.thomasgenweb.com/staub.pdf . That document, which was web-posted in 2008, identifies the author by his name and e-mail address. That author created and apparently still maintains the website, and he surely knows that his email address is all over the website. I assume that the WikiTreers who cited that document included his email address because it was part of the publication details.

Since that particular document is online, the email address is not critically important for locating the document, but there are numerous unpublished documents cited in other existing profiles where the email address is the only indication of the identity of the author.