Re^5: Fed Up

If there were a note on the login page that stated perlmonks doesn’t need a permanent e-mail address, I would get a login that way, but right now it the “please note” section does imply that someone may want to contact me in the future.

I'm not sure how you are reading it to get that implication. The "please note" section on Create A New User says:

We are not going to send you junk email "member updates", sell your address to spammers, or display your email address for people to see. This email exists so that you can receive your password, and/or retrieve it if you forget. There may be future email functionality, which you will have the option to turn on from your user settings page.

It fairly clearly says to me that any email interaction after the original receipt of your password is going to be optional (and opt-in). Is there a way it could be reworded to make this more clear to you?

Comment on Re^5: Fed Up

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Re^6: Fed Up by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2004 at 23:51 UTC
It fairly clearly says to me that any email interaction after the original receipt of your password is going to be optional (and opt-in). Is there a way it could be reworded to make this more clear to you? Nope, your absolutely right. I misread the last sentence when I first went to create a new user. I’m still left wondering about the credibility of that statement, since they don’t need my e-mail address if they aren’t going to contact me, but I will consider creating a junk address to get a login.	[reply]
Re^7: Fed Up (e-mail to join) by tye (Sage) on Oct 04, 2004 at 05:31 UTC
We're very unlikely to ever use your e-mail. It is a good idea to have it set to something that works in case you forget your password, though. This is part of why an e-mail is required to sign up. We are so unlikely to use your e-mail that we didn't even e-mail people when we deleted the last batch of inactive accounts (who had never posted a node and hadn't visited in a very long time, if ever -- most of which were the result of people entering an invalid e-mail when they signed up anyway). I'm pretty sure that we have never sent a batch of e-mails out. On very rare occasions I think we've sent e-mail to a particular user because of some very unusual circumstances. But I can't remember any examples because it happens so rarely (I can recall a few times we considered e-mailing someone, but I don't think we ended up doing so those times). And we make a decent amount of beer money selling your e-mail to pr0n sites. No, wait, that was that other site I worked on. Feel free to set up a temporary address in order to sign up. It is a pain and I promise you that there is little point to making that effort. Another reason for the e-mail requirement is to make it a bit more difficult to build yourself a clone army. We don't require an e-mail address out of any desire to send you e-mail. - tye	[reply]
Re^7: Fed Up by Rhys (Pilgrim) on Oct 04, 2004 at 11:39 UTC
I’m still left wondering about the credibility of that statement, since they don’t need my e-mail address if they aren’t going to contact me, but I will consider creating a junk address to get a login. My first login was in Jan. 2001. I used PM for a short while, then didn't log in again for three years. In all that time, I don't think I received a single e-mail that came from PM, nor did my ambient level of spam increase due to PM. (I could always trace it back to some other unscrupulous (DUH-leeted).) I have no other point. ;-) --J	[reply]


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