Re: Email addresses in GNOME manuals...

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 01:10:10PM +0000, Pat Costello wrote:
[...]
> > As you know, the current templates for GNOME online manuals include a
> > section for the email address of the author. I'd like to suggest that we
> > make this address optional in the templates. There are two reasons why
> > I'm suggesting this, as follows:
[...]
> > * The author's email address detracts attention from the real link that
> > users should be using to provide feedback, ie. the GNOME Feedback Page.
> > We have received feedback about applications and manuals directly to the
> > email address given at the top of the manual and when I've tried to
> > forward the feedback onto the developers, I've found that a lot of email
> > addresses for them are obsolete. It would be better if the only point of
> > contact the user has is via the Feedback page. That way, the feedback
> > gets directed to the appropriate person automatically. 
[...]
> I have to echo Irene's comments. I've received some very dubious spam
> via the email address that we have put into GNOME documentation. OK,
> we can delete spam and no harm done, but it is irritating. I think
> Irene's second point is potentially more serious. We have already
> received several requests for technical support from GNOME users, via
> the email address on GNOME manuals. At the same time, we have had no
> feedback at all about the manuals themselves.  Therefore, as the GNOME
> desktop becomes more popular, as inevitably will happen, then this
> trend could generate a stream of support requests to the documentation
> teams. Let's make the author's email address optional. 

I agree. I can't speak to the amount of extra spam generated from
documents containing my email address (since posting to various GNOME
lists increases that number greatly anyway), but I have had the problem
of people wanting extra support or just being confused about where to
send stuff. I don't want to just ignore those pieces of mail, but it
always takes a bit of time to respond and redirect the correspondent.

[That said, I am unlikely to stop putting my email address on any future
documents I may choose to write, since I also get a lot of good
corrections and comments, so it's probably a net gain for the docs I
have written. But I would be in favour of giving people the choice.]

Malcolm

-- 
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.