Grants:IdeaLab/Allow users to restrict who can send them email

Inspire campaign

Allow users to restrict who can send them email

Allow users to choose which user groups who can email them

contact emailTalk pages preferred, or Special:EmailUser/BethNaught

idea creator• BethNaught

project manager• Coma245745

developer• Rohanmoni7

created on21:41, Thursday, June 9, 2016 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Some users suffer harassment in the form of receiving abusive emails. This is facilitated by the Special:EmailUser system, which (on English Wikipedia at least) allows any logged-in user to send email to any other user who has enabled the receiving of email from others. This is a binary choice.

What is your solution?

There are two aspects to the solution:

1. Allow people to prevent a list of named users from emailing them, while leaving Special:EmailUser enabled.
2. Allow each individual user to choose which user access levels another person must have to send them email. For example, autoconfirmation could be required to prevent the use of throwaway accounts. In case of autoconfirmed sockpuppets, a higher level, like "extended confirmed" on English Wikipedia, could be required.

   To clarify, each user could choose individually. So User:Example1 might allow email from all users, User:Example2 might restrict it to autoconfirmed users, and User:ExampleA might allow only admins to email them.

Exact details would need discussion but I think this gives the idea.

Project goals

The aim of this proposal is to make it so that editors can allow legitimate users to email them using the wiki email system while preventing abusive users from doing so.

Get involved

Participants

• Project manager 他控制了當下的我.好比我的經理 Coma245745 (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Developer Gmail account recovery Rohanmoni7 (talk) 23:21, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Endorsements

• It would be great for users to have an option to prevent anons from e-mailing them (requiring at least autoconfirmed level, per your option 2). Probably easier than implementing a blocklist of specific users too. Funcrunch (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• Looks fine to me. Smallbones (talk) 02:08, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
• It would be nicer to be able to restrict people from your talk page. —Neotarf (talk) 01:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

  Neotarf: I have a proposal on that. Funcrunch (talk) 01:22, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Not the same, it protects the page, and I have always wanted my page open to IP's. I mean, if you ask someone to stay off your talk page, because of discriminatory language or hate speech, for example, and they keep coming back, you want to restrict that one user. —Neotarf (talk) 01:34, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
• Endorse. Others have suggested more general twitter-style block lists which seem impractical for a collaborative environment, but a personal blacklist for "email this user" is straight forward functionality. There's no reason for this proposal to not be implemented. Pengo (talk) 00:12, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
• Endorse. I like this idea. There might be some pushback about the idea of admins blocking anyone but autoconfirmed accounts and higher from e-mailing them, but otherwise this is very good and I know that several users would take advantage of this. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:32, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: phab:T129747 --𝔊 (𝔊𝔯𝔞𝔡𝔷𝔢𝔦𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔫 Diſk✉Talk) 11:00, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  That's an interesting idea, but it wouldn't address the issue I'm thinking of here. Changing your "throwaway email account" as you put it, wouldn't stop the stalker from using Special:EmailUser, which would route the trolling to the new address. I want to stop people from having to deal with any trolling in their inbox. BethNaught (talk) 18:07, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  But you would know not to respond to the user (so he doesn't get to know the new address), and send his posts direct to the spam folder. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 19:23, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  That's not the point. The victim of the harassment (and that is what we are talking about here) shouldn't even have to do that. And bear in mind, if a troll uses multiple throwaway email addresses and accounts, the victim would have to mark each new email address as spam, ie still have to deal with it. That is what the "email protection" proposal is for. BethNaught (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

  You are aware, that if you answer once to a wikimail (and you will probaly answer the first, because, you don't know about the coming harassment) the other party gets to know your address and no longer needs to use special:mailtouser. Also have you heard about thank-you-spam? A user gets harrassed by receving dozens of echo-thank-you-messages, even so s/he has blocked wikimail. The phab-entry has been added to rfc, so comments and additional ideas can be added. But it still is only my idea - I plan to present it in the next user technical wishlist survey. If by that point it has recevived some more tokens, it might actually get the support needed to be included in the voting. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 21:42, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

• Xbony2 (talk) 14:32, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
• Endorse. This idea is simple and practical and looks like it would be very effective. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:26, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
• I was about to propose this myself. I've created the Phabricator tickets phab:T138165 and phab:T138166 and will raise these at the next Community Wishlist survey if necessary. MER-C (talk) 11:45, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

  Thank you for creating the tickets, MER-C. BethNaught (talk) 11:56, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

• This is a great suggestion, and I think it would help to curb abuse perpetrated through Emailuser. Let's do this. Seraphimblade (talk) 18:03, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• 自己說的不能不認同 Coma245745 (talk) 19:13, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Probably the only access levels that this needs to be settable for are confirmed/autoconfirmed and Extended confirmed. I'm hoping that if this were done "Email this User" would only display if you were able to email a user - it would be bitey if the system displayed the option but then said "you don't have the requisite access level to email this editor". WereSpielChequers (talk) 05:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. It would also be nice if there was a public or private log of emails sent through the system, so that people could confirm if emails are being sent for blocking purposes as needed. This should also work across all wikis for a SUL, otherwise the status quo of a harassing user going to another wiki after they are blocked on the first to email will still be in play. – Ajraddatz (talk) 06:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse. Allowing a user to chose who they want to receive emails from (or not) is a basic feature that any mailing service provides these days and it's time we caught up, as this would at least help users gain more control over what hits their inbox.Tsoukali (talk) 08:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments

Would it be worthwhile if admins/checkusers/ArbCom/whatever could see the list of editors who email block a particular editor? Being prevented from emailing multiple other users suggests sanctions should be considered. (A count does not give enough information, it can be easily gamed). MER-C (talk) 02:31, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

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