Board Thread:Support Requests - Community Management/@comment-251883-20140531064327/@comment-856287-20140601011608

Princess Callie wrote: Hmm, alright, I'll work on that point. Say a user doesn't want to give out his email? For example, if I'm being just shy of stalked by another user, I wouldn't feel comfortable putting my email on a person's wall where they could get their hands on it.

Perhaps one or both of you could use a masked e-mail address: a temporary address that forwards mail to your real address. There are a few free services that will set this up for you. This is basically like the Special:EmailUser function: a third-party that takes your message and forwards it to a real email address that you can't see.

If the goals of Special:EmailUser are …then putting a masked e-mail on a user's wall should also offer:
 * 1) privacy for your messages
 * 2) privacy for your e-mail address (although anyone could contact you via Special:EmailUser anyway)
 * 3) direct e-mail contact for even inactive users
 * 1) privacy for your messages
 * 2) privacy for your e-mail address (although anyone who sees the post could contact you anyway, for as long as the masked address lasts)
 * 3) direct e-mail contact for inactive users (if they still have email notifications on), and failing an email notification, you at least have sent them the message and can set up direct e-mail communications. They'll see the message the next time they log into any Wikia wiki.

So it's not exactly a perfect replacement as far as functionality, and it's a little harder to set up, but it works, doesn't it? (No really, I never used Special:EmailUser, so… does this work, at least kind of? 😆)

Personally, I think Wikia should limit this kind of private communication as much as possible. Keeping things public tends to help people behave themselves better 😯