Suggestion Managing E-mail User Names on PF

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jimmy Snyder
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AI Thread Summary
Users on Physics Forums express concern over email privacy, particularly regarding the visibility of their email addresses in communications. Many prefer not to respond to emails from other members to avoid disclosing their own email addresses. A suggestion was made to include user names with emails sent through the platform to facilitate private messaging without revealing personal information. Additionally, users are reminded to disable email notifications in their preferences to enhance privacy. The discussion also touches on the importance of reporting posts that contain personal information for removal by moderators.
Jimmy Snyder
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I have received a couple of e-mails from PF members recently. First of all, if my e-mail address is visible to others, I would like to suppress that. But even if it is not visible, I do not wish to respond to these e-mails because I don't want to broadcast my e-mail address. I would PM my response, but I don't know their user names. I suggest that when an e-mail is sent via PF, the user name be attached to the message. That way I can contact the person without revealing my e-mail address.
 
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Jimmy Snyder said:
I have received a couple of e-mails from PF members recently. First of all, if my e-mail address is visible to others, I would like to suppress that. But even if it is not visible, I do not wish to respond to these e-mails because I don't want to broadcast my e-mail address. I would PM my response, but I don't know their user names. I suggest that when an e-mail is sent via PF, the user name be attached to the message. That way I can contact the person without revealing my e-mail address.
You need to go into your user preferences and disable "receiving e-mail from other members"

Go to My PF, "Messaging & Notification" uncheck "Receive Email from Other Members"
 
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Jimmy Snyder said:
I have received a couple of e-mails from PF members recently. First of all, if my e-mail address is visible to others, I would like to suppress that. But even if it is not visible, I do not wish to respond to these e-mails because I don't want to broadcast my e-mail address. I would PM my response, but I don't know their user names. I suggest that when an e-mail is sent via PF, the user name be attached to the message. That way I can contact the person without revealing my e-mail address.

I just tried this. Using a test account available to Mentors, I sent an email to PF member George Jones. The test account was unable to see the email address of George Jones. I received an email from PFmember@Physics Forums. You should be able to PM PFmember.
 
How embarrassing. No one can send me an e-mail through PF because I have already turned it off. The e-mails that were sent to me came because I had put my e-mail address into one of my posts. Not embarrassing enough? Make that three separate posts. Never mind.
 
Jimmy Snyder said:
How embarrassing. No one can send me an e-mail through PF because I have already turned it off. The e-mails that were sent to me came because I had put my e-mail address into one of my posts. Not embarrassing enough? Make that three separate posts. Never mind.

If you haven't done so, I think you could ask a mentor to remove the address.

Refrain from disclosing personal information. i.e. hometown, real name, email address... For your safety staff may edit out such information if posted.

Physics Forums Global Guidelines
 
Jimmy Snyder said:
I had put my e-mail address into one of my posts. Not embarrassing enough? Make that three separate posts.

Hit the "Report" button on those posts, add a few words explaining why, and we'll be happy to delete the e-mail addresses for you.

Using "Report" instead of a PM ensures that we all see it and have a chance to act on it, instead of it maybe languishing unread in somebody's PM box for a while.
 
Shhhh, Ixnay on the eefray edits! I already *fixed* Jimmy. All for the low low price of $50 per edit, paid in advance, of course.

(Evo will get that electric meat smoker any day now)
 
Evo said:
Shhhh, Ixnay on the eefray edits! I already *fixed* Jimmy. All for the low low price of $50 per edit, paid in advance, of course.

(Evo will get that electric meat smoker any day now)
You're smoking electric meat, now?

Oh, wait, I'll bet you mean electric (meat smoker), not (electric meat) smoker. :devil:
 
Evo said:
Shhhh, Ixnay on the eefray edits! I already *fixed* Jimmy. All for the low low price of $50 per edit, paid in advance, of course.

(Evo will get that electric meat smoker any day now)
You didn't demand dark Belgian chocolate? I had to pay a lot to ship that stuff. PayPal would have been easier.

Never ask Evo for a favor!
 
  • #10
My problem is fixed. However, the thread in which I had put my e-mail address has the e-mail addresses of a lot of other people too.
 
  • #11
George Jones said:
I just tried this. Using a test account available to Mentors, I sent an email to PF member George Jones. The test account was unable to see the email address of George Jones. I received an email from PFmember@Physics Forums. You should be able to PM PFmember.
I was able to see the email address of a member who sent me a PF email in August. I don't think he wanted me to, considering how hostile he had been. The email I got was from <username>@physicsforums.com. It looked like this:
This is a message from <username> at Physics Forums ( https://www.physicsforums.com/index.php ). The Physics Forums owners cannot accept any responsibility for the contents of the email.

To email <username>, you can use this online form:
https://www.physicsforums.com/sendmessage.php?do=mailmember&u=<user id number>

OR, by email:
mailto:<his email address at a university in germany>

This is the message:

<message text>
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #12
Jimmy Snyder said:
My problem is fixed. However, the thread in which I had put my e-mail address has the e-mail addresses of a lot of other people too.
Spam 'em! Spam 'em good!
 
  • #13
Jimmy Snyder said:
My problem is fixed. However, the thread in which I had put my e-mail address has the e-mail addresses of a lot of other people too.
Jimmy being unwittingly responsible for spamming and phishing assaults on equally unwitting PF members, got to love it (only kidding Jimmy, only kidding).

Rhody... :redface: :-p
 

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