Email address security...

[Gordon Royle]

Returning to the question of email address security from OEIS.....

Rather than come up with increasingly interesting ways to disguise the 
email address (I still like my idea from a year or so ago about 
automatically making GIFs) then we might ask why the email address is 
present at all?

Presumably, so that a (human) browser can contact a contributor with 
questions, comments etc.

So what about something like this:

	- each contributor has a contributor ID assigned on first contribution
	- Neil's database stores "contributor profiles" that contain the email 
address of the contributor
	- a link is provided on each sequence that says "Contact Contributor" 
and leads to an HTML form that the human browser fills in
	- the server sends an email to the right place, after which the 
contributor is free to respond in the usual fashion (the Reply-To field 
being set by the server to the (human) browser's email address)
	- the contributor can edit their own profile so that a change of email 
address is automatically valid for every sequence contributed by that 
contributor

The email address is never visible to anyone unless the contributor 
chooses to reply directly....

It sounds complex, but is actually readily automated.. there are plenty 
of free scripts around to manage lists in this fashion...