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Anonymous emails


Alan White

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

Email sent through Groundspeak should contain the GC.com username of each individual, is that not correct? While you don't have their email address, it is quite simple to contact them through GC.com as well... oh, and you can 'hide' your email address too.

 

You might consider your behavior in the realm of the game. Is there any validity to what your correspondents have to say?

 

If it's just the typical 'crotchety-old-man' syndrome type of email that a lot of users feel free to send around here, you might just suck it up and get over it. There are more than a few users who think they're God's Gift to Geocaching and are compelled to share that with everyone, and it's best not to engage them in any kind of email banter because it's never going to do anything but go downhill.

 

If email is, indeed, abusive (you might want to read the TOS for the definition of abusive), you could email the Powers That Be with your complaint.

 

 

michelle

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

What sorts of things are they being critical of?

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

What sorts of things are they being critical of?

 

I don't know, but it must be pretty serious, as he has an empty profile, despite a banner saying he has almost 3,000 finds. I dunno, maybe people don't like the rock band Yes? He's been the drummer for 34 years. Just kidding, probably not the same guy

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

What sorts of things are they being critical of?

 

I don't know, but it must be pretty serious, as he has an empty profile, despite a banner saying he has almost 3,000 finds. I dunno, maybe people don't like the rock band Yes? He's been the drummer for 34 years. Just kidding, probably not the same guy

try this profile

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

What sorts of things are they being critical of?

 

I don't know, but it must be pretty serious, as he has an empty profile, despite a banner saying he has almost 3,000 finds. I dunno, maybe people don't like the rock band Yes? He's been the drummer for 34 years. Just kidding, probably not the same guy

try this profile

 

Oh, I'm such a putz. :laughing: To stay on topic, I've only once in 4+ years received an email that could be considered borderline abuse. And I'm sure I just ignored it.

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

Why? You still have the ability to email them back. What difference does it make if you have their "real" email address or not?

 

I, and a lot of other people, have a Gmail address that's used just for geocaching, which then auto-forwards to my "real" email address. What is knowing that Gmail address going to get you? Yeah, nothing.

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At the bottom of those emails is the line: Forward abuse complaints to: contact@geocaching.com .

And I have, but would it not be better to stop problems at source, rather than try to react to them afterwards?

 

As stated previously, you do have a means to contact them back, same as you would if it were there "real" email.

 

If it is of an illegal nature, i.e. physical threat, contact GC as well as the authorities. This would be the same course as if you had a direct email.

 

I don't view it as a problem. Others view it as a feature, wanting to keep there email private due, most likely due to spam issues.

Edited by baloo&bd
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At the bottom of those emails is the line: Forward abuse complaints to: contact@geocaching.com .

And I have, but would it not be better to stop problems at source, rather than try to react to them afterwards?

 

I don't understand what you mean by stopping the problems at the source. The only way to do that would be to change human nature.

 

The emails are not anonymous. They come from a GC.com account and can be traced back.

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First, sometimes the omission of e-mail address is an accident. For example, I usually uncheck the "send me a copy of this e-mail" box, but have on occasion unchecked the wrong box (I know b/c I get a copy of the message I just sent).

 

I have also come to appreciate the feature as it allowed us to positively identify a sock puppet. I had multiple back and forth messages with the presumed sock puppet and despite the fact the I sent replies with my e-mail identified all the responses came back via geocaching.com as "sock puppet contacting...". :D I was annoyed that in order to respond to him I had to take the extra steps to go through geocaching.com. That is until he slipped up and forgot to log into the sock puppet account, :laughing: and e-mail on the subject came as "creepy cacher creepy contacting...." Funny how his "issue" disappeared after his true identity was revealed . :wacko:

 

jrr

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Funny how his "issue" disappeared after his true identity was revealed . :D

And that's it, really. The people who choose to hide their email address have something to hide, so I don't want them to be able to use GC.com to contact me.

 

Groundspeak says "We respect our users privacy" but its protecting the sender not the recipient. The sender has a choice but the recipient has no way of protecting their privacy. I've given two simple methods by which this could be achieved, one of which has no effect on anyone else. This option is analogous to the "Allow friend requests" option.

 

Another solution is for these emails to have a different from address. At present most emails (PQ, watchlist, notify) from Groundspeak come from noreply@geocaching.com. And so do these anonymous mails. This means I can't use the from address to differentiate them in my spam filter. If the user-generated mails were from a different address than the system-generated mails then this would be easy.

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I checked both your profiles. You do not have an email address posted. Neither do I but I respect the fact that people who do not know me, may not want me to know their email address. I frequently hide my email address when I initially contact someone I do not know. It is part of protecting my privacy.

 

I'm puzzled by what email message anyone can send that would upset you so. It is after all just words on a screen but if you feel so strongly about having an actual email address, I think you should return the courtesy and post your email address.

Team Taran

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I think the current system works fine the way it is.

 

Senders should be able to protect their email addresses. Without this ability, I think many people would hesitate to communicate with other geocachers. I understand that there are those who would (and do) use the (relatively) anonymous nature of the current system inappropriately, but Groundspeak has methods for directly dealing with such abuses.

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At present most emails (PQ, watchlist, notify) from Groundspeak come from noreply@geocaching.com. And so do these anonymous mails. This means I can't use the from address to differentiate them in my spam filter. If the user-generated mails were from a different address than the system-generated mails then this would be easy.

I've got filters that separate different types of email into different folders. One filter puts all contacts from other users at Groundspeak into its own folder. You could just as easily send it to the dustbin instead.

 

I do think there should be an option to not accept contacts from other players, though. Too many folks get harassed via the contact feature. Even better would be a way to block only certain users or allow only certain users.

 

Heck, Groundspeak could completely do away with the contact system altogether and rely on the already-built PM system in the forums.

 

...or combine the two suggestions and allow folks to block emails and folks wanting to contact a user is sent to the PM feature instead of the contact page transparently. The recipient is then notified they have a PM waiting.

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Funny how his "issue" disappeared after his true identity was revealed . :D

And that's it, really. The people who choose to hide their email address have something to hide, so I don't want them to be able to use GC.com to contact me.

 

I think the issue disappearing and the fact that the email address changed was a coincidence.

 

Nothing changes, you still can"t do anything differently whether it came from GC or the individual directly.

 

You still have not shared what is in this email to make you feel so threatened. Is this a real problem or a perceived one?

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Argghh! Groundspeak have changed things in the last 24 hours - for the worse!

 

Previously, mails from members who released their email address would be shown as being from that address. Both the Return-path: and From: tags were set to that address. There was no Reply-to:. And mails from members who withheld their address had a Return-Path: and From: of contact@...

 

Now, all mails from members have Return-Path: and From: of noreply@geo..., and those from members who have released their address have a Reply-to: of that address.

 

So it all works as before [1], but at first glance all emails from members appear from the headers to be anonymous so it's even more difficult to filter them properly. Groundspeak: what's the thinking here?

 

[1] However, the change may well break people's spam filters or rules. It would be nice to see an announcement about this change.

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Argghh! Groundspeak have changed things in the last 24 hours - for the worse!

 

Previously, mails from members who released their email address would be shown as being from that address. Both the Return-path: and From: tags were set to that address. There was no Reply-to:. And mails from members who withheld their address had a Return-Path: and From: of contact@...

 

Now, all mails from members have Return-Path: and From: of noreply@geo..., and those from members who have released their address have a Reply-to: of that address.

 

So it all works as before [1], but at first glance all emails from members appear from the headers to be anonymous so it's even more difficult to filter them properly. Groundspeak: what's the thinking here?

 

[1] However, the change may well break people's spam filters or rules. It would be nice to see an announcement about this change.

Interesting point.

 

As to Alan's general initial point, I actually disagreed because there was always, if slightly tediously, a way of replying to generators of less than pleasant anon emails - and in the end TPTB / Mods could always step in.

 

But the use of 'no reply' for all displayed email addresses (if I get Alan's drift) - whether fully declared or not - is a nightmare when it comes to block management of emails. I regularly block delete all emails starting 'no reply', as these tend to be the 'unimportant' emails. The others I then saunter through in more details.

 

If Alan's displayed email becomes 'no reply' even if the actual reply tab generates his address, I would be in the nightmare situation of having to manually check and edit each geo-email. Yep ... even us lowly anoraks in the UK get loads of emails - and we do need to filter them successfully.

 

If I didnt get the drift of Alan's posting right - errrr .... call me senile and ignore.

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A number of times I've received emails from other cachers sent via the Groundspeak website which are critical, bordering on abusive. Of course, such cachers always choose the option to hide their email address. Just why does Groundspeak encourage poor behaviour by providing this option?

 

If it's considered acceptable for members to anonymously criticise other members, then please could there be an option for me to decline to receive such anonymous emails.

 

The email being sent is far from anonymous. You aren't able to see their email address but their Geocaching user name is on the email and geocaching.com can find out their email address.

 

At the bottom of those emails is the line: Forward abuse complaints to: contact@geocaching.com .

 

UncleJumbo has it correct! Forward the email to contact@geocaching.com and let them take care of it.

 

Funny how his "issue" disappeared after his true identity was revealed . :D

And that's it, really. The people who choose to hide their email address have something to hide, so I don't want them to be able to use GC.com to contact me.

 

Groundspeak says "We respect our users privacy" but its protecting the sender not the recipient. The sender has a choice but the recipient has no way of protecting their privacy. I've given two simple methods by which this could be achieved, one of which has no effect on anyone else. This option is analogous to the "Allow friend requests" option.

 

Another solution is for these emails to have a different from address. At present most emails (PQ, watchlist, notify) from Groundspeak come from noreply@geocaching.com. And so do these anonymous mails. This means I can't use the from address to differentiate them in my spam filter. If the user-generated mails were from a different address than the system-generated mails then this would be easy.

 

I hide my personal email whenever I send email via the geocaching.com email feature and I do have something to hide. I am hiding my email address form those of you that either don't know you have a virus or don't care that you have a virus or share my email with others without striping out my email address and they have a virus that collects email addresses and adds them to spam lists. I changed my email address that use for all my geocaching.com email and made sure to hide my email address every time. That email account has been spam free for over 4 years now! Thank you geocaching.com that feature is awesome please don't cripple it because of a few bad apples.

 

If geocaching.com does anything I suggest that they block the ability of those who abuse the ability to hide their email address from being able to hide their email address. Punish the abuser. Don't punish those of us who properly use the feature.

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I don't believe anyone is suggesting "crippling" the feature (yes, one way of fixing the problem is to remove the ability to send anonymous emails, but I've suggested plenty of other methods). What I'm requesting is that there be a balance between the rights of the sender and the rights of the recipient. At present, any member can send anything they like to any other member and the recipient can do nothing about it. From this thread, I'm clearly not the only person who's received such mails.

 

My preferred solution, as I've already said, is that there be an option analagous to the Friends option whereby a member can choose not to receive mails from a member who won't disclose their address. Using this option, everyone gets what they want.

 

This isn't about spam (the number of mails you can send using Groundspeak's tool is limited in number and content) or viruses (you sending me a mail can't possibly get a virus from my computer to yours). In any case, protection against spam and viruses should be down to the recipient, not Groundspeak.

 

While the debate is interesting, it would be useful, since Groundspeak are listening :D, to hear the official view both on the original request and on the change to the email headers.

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While the debate is interesting, it would be useful, since Groundspeak are listening :D, to hear the official view both on the original request and on the change to the email headers.

 

I wasn't going to respond since plenty of people have already pointed out the reasons that it is the way it is. I don't buy the argument that "the recipient can do nothing about it" since I have personally responded to email abuse complaints and banned, eh... email abusers.

 

I understand that email has become a highly personal thing but there are good reasons for allowing any geocacher to contact you. For instance, if a bear has taken up residence at one of your caches you might like to know about it. If the bear-warner calls you an idiot as well, let us know and we'll smack them with the ban stick.

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...If it's just the typical 'crotchety-old-man' syndrome type of email that a lot of users feel free to send around here,...

 

Sorry about that.

 

On topic and to the OP.

 

Groundspeak logs the IP address of the system users. That gives them options for dealing with abuse. The reason you can use the system and keep your email private (and yet everone knows who the heck you are) is so that people can retain some semblance of separation from people who have chosen to harass them email and still allow for actual and useful communications like cache issues and questions.

 

I think the implementation is a a good balance of being able to communicate while allowing for privacy.

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....My preferred solution, as I've already said, is that there be an option analagous to the Friends option whereby a member can choose not to receive mails from a member who won't disclose their address. Using this option, everyone gets what they want....

 

So long as I can choose not to show my caches to people who have chosen to blacklist my emails either directly or indirectly, I'll buy into your solution.

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What I'm requesting is that there be a balance between the rights of the sender and the rights of the recipient. At present, any member can send anything they like to any other member and the recipient can do nothing about it.

 

Please, I really want to know (no sarcasm intended) , how is that different from this?:

 

"What I'm requesting is that there be a balance between the rights of the sender and the rights of the recipient. At present, any person with email can send anything they like to any other person with email and the recipient can do nothing about it."

 

Also, you still have not said what it is that is so threatening. Did Groundspeak handle it appropriately after you contacted them? If not, I would rather discuss that concern, since it is one we would share. Is this a real email or is this just a "what if" type concern? It really appears to be the latter since there have been no details.

 

As to the not being able to get viruses or spam from sending email, read back four or five posts to Glenn who explained the concern.

 

It would appear that neither you or I are willing to give our emails out on this site. We both have our reason as I am sure many senders do. Since we are not willing to give our "real" email so people on Geocaching.com can send us email, why should they have to give us their email (since there is a clear identifier included) when they send us something?

 

Opting out of emails, especially if you have caches hidden should not be an option as this is the only way to contact you with concerns.

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This isn't about spam (the number of mails you can send using Groundspeak's tool is limited in number and content) or viruses (you sending me a mail can't possibly get a virus from my computer to yours). In any case, protection against spam and viruses should be down to the recipient, not Groundspeak.

 

It most certainly is about Spam to me. Any spammer in the world can go on GC.com and find email addresses that are not hidden, and then they can spam them all they want, outside of GC.com, through normal email.

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This isn't about spam (the number of mails you can send using Groundspeak's tool is limited in number and content) or viruses (you sending me a mail can't possibly get a virus from my computer to yours). In any case, protection against spam and viruses should be down to the recipient, not Groundspeak.

 

It most certainly is about Spam to me. Any spammer in the world can go on GC.com and find email addresses that are not hidden, and then they can spam them all they want, outside of GC.com, through normal email.

 

So don't show your email address. Problem solved.

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Argghh! Groundspeak have changed things in the last 24 hours - for the worse!

 

Previously, mails from members who released their email address would be shown as being from that address. Both the Return-path: and From: tags were set to that address. There was no Reply-to:. And mails from members who withheld their address had a Return-Path: and From: of contact@...

 

Now, all mails from members have Return-Path: and From: of noreply@geo..., and those from members who have released their address have a Reply-to: of that address.

 

So it all works as before [1], but at first glance all emails from members appear from the headers to be anonymous so it's even more difficult to filter them properly. Groundspeak: what's the thinking here?

 

[1] However, the change may well break people's spam filters or rules. It would be nice to see an announcement about this change.

In reply to the From: addresses now all being from no-reply@, this actually makes it easier for email filters to flag the email as being from geocaching.com (I already have filers set up for noreply@, since all log notifies come through it), before I had to do a filter on the subject to guarantee the emails being sorted into my geocaching inbox.

 

It will also prevent the mail from being marked as spam, since the mail would have originated from geocaching.com, yet the from address being @hotmail.com would flag up possible spam to email servers, which may silently drop it.

 

This change is, in all, a good thing.

Edited by Edgemaster
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Argghh! Groundspeak have changed things in the last 24 hours - for the worse!

 

Previously, mails from members who released their email address would be shown as being from that address. Both the Return-path: and From: tags were set to that address. There was no Reply-to:. And mails from members who withheld their address had a Return-Path: and From: of contact@...

 

Now, all mails from members have Return-Path: and From: of noreply@geo..., and those from members who have released their address have a Reply-to: of that address.

 

So it all works as before [1], but at first glance all emails from members appear from the headers to be anonymous so it's even more difficult to filter them properly. Groundspeak: what's the thinking here?

 

[1] However, the change may well break people's spam filters or rules. It would be nice to see an announcement about this change.

You may not like it, but this is a change from bad procedure, to good procedure. The system, in the past, was basically spoofing email addresses - a definite no-no. The email headers are now properly formed, and correctly represent the reality of the email.

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This isn't about spam (the number of mails you can send using Groundspeak's tool is limited in number and content) or viruses (you sending me a mail can't possibly get a virus from my computer to yours). In any case, protection against spam and viruses should be down to the recipient, not Groundspeak.

 

It most certainly is about Spam to me. Any spammer in the world can go on GC.com and find email addresses that are not hidden, and then they can spam them all they want, outside of GC.com, through normal email.

 

So don't show your email address. Problem solved.

 

I never had a problem (since I don't show my email address). A problem would be created if the OP's suggestion were implemented and everyone were forced to show their email address in order to communicate with other geocachers.

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<snip>

This isn't about spam (the number of mails you can send using Groundspeak's tool is limited in number and content) or viruses (you sending me a mail can't possibly get a virus from my computer to yours). In any case, protection against spam and viruses should be down to the recipient, not Groundspeak.

<snip>

 

I don't like the term anonymous email because the email isn't anonymous. In the body of the email is the user name of the person who sent you the email and there is a link to their profile so that you can respond. The feature that hides your email address isn't anonymous because you know who is sending you the email.

 

There are two common methods that spammers use to collect email email addresses and the anonymous email feature protects me against both of them. One method is harvesting email addresses from websites. Those of us using the anonymous email feature are protected against this method because our email address isn't shown. Another common method is via virus, worm, trojan, malicious scripts, etc. A system infected with one of the many email virus varieties will either report all the email addresses it finds in address books and the from field in emails back to the spammers or it may even be programmed to directly spam all the email addresses that it finds. The anonymous email feature protect me against that too because when I select for my email address not to be shown there is no way that someone with an infected computer can send my email address to a spammer since it never had my email address in the first place.

 

The email address that I use for my geocaching and Waymarking email has not been shared with anyone except Groundspeak. It has been active for many years and I have yet to receive one spam email! If I get an abusive email via the anonymous email system I simply send it to the contact@geocaching.com email address and since it has the persons user name in the email they take care of the problem.

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I never had a problem (since I don't show my email address). A problem would be created if the OP's suggestion were implemented and everyone were forced to show their email address in order to communicate with other geocachers.

Sorry, you (and I think several others) misunderstand so I've obviously not explained myself very well.

 

I'm not suggesting that everyone should be required to show their email address on the profile page, for the reasons you and others say - it would become susceptible to spam. Indeed, it would be hypocritical of me to make that suggestion, since I don't do it myself :laughing:.

 

What I am suggesting is that when a member uses the profile to mail another member then either the sender should be required to release their address or the recipient should have the option for the mail not to be sent.

 

However, the discussion is academic since Groundspeak have said that they'll be leaving things as they are. Which means that I've had to take my own steps to prevent receiving anonymous mails. That's been made more difficult by Groundspeak's latest change so that all emails now come from noreply@ but it can still be done. I've put a warning on my profile to that effect, but it would have been nice if Groundspeak had implemented it in the same way as the Friends option.

 

I raised the point so that others were aware of the problem, but since everyone who's commented thinks it's OK for members to send anonymous abusive emails to other members then there's nothing more to be said :laughing:

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Also, you still have not said what it is that is so threatening. Did Groundspeak handle it appropriately after you contacted them? If not, I would rather discuss that concern, since it is one we would share. Is this a real email or is this just a "what if" type concern? It really appears to be the latter since there have been no details.

As I've said, the discussion is now somewhat academic but it would be impolite not to answer your questions.

 

Yes, these are real emails. Not one but several, over years, and from different users. And they all hid their email addresses. Conversely, no user who hasn't hid their address has been abusive. I think the logic is self-evident. No, I've not been happy with Groundspeak's responses. I'm obviously not prepared to describe individual situations.

 

Opting out of emails, especially if you have caches hidden should not be an option as this is the only way to contact you with concerns.

And I wasn't suggesting it. I'm suggesting opting out of anonymous emails.
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So it all works as before [1], but at first glance all emails from members appear from the headers to be anonymous so it's even more difficult to filter them properly. Groundspeak: what's the thinking here?

Are you really being contacted that much?? If so, you are either really popular or there is something wrong with the way you hide or seek caches.
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I understand that email has become a highly personal thing but there are good reasons for allowing any geocacher to contact you. For instance, if a bear has taken up residence at one of your caches you might like to know about it. If the bear-warner calls you an idiot as well, let us know and we'll smack them with the ban stick.

Thanks for the response. Of course there are good reasons for allowing any cacher to contact me, but there are no good reasons for them to do so anonymously.

 

Several bear-warners (unlikely in England :laughing: ) have called me an idiot, alll of them anonymously. This is why I wanted some protection against it. Since Groundspeak doesn't want to provide it then I've provided my own. Which is merely following my own advice above :laughing:. I just thought that others might find it useful if Groundspeak provided something so that others didn't have to do it themselves.

 

But anyway, thanks for listening and for taking the time to respond.

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In, I think, concluding this can I just thank all the contributors for a polite discussion. Too often on this forum a suggestion from someone outside the USA is met with scorn, sarcasm or abuse. This debate has been a pleasure to participate in. Thanks, all :(.

You're not from the USA? :laughing:

 

You should have told me that. My earlier response would have taken on an entirely different tone. Bear-warning emails are on the way. :laughing:

 

 

 

 

 

:laughing:

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Hi Alan

 

I bet I am in the majority when I say I have never received an abusive Groundspeak email, and I have never hidden my email address. I have contacted and been email contacted many times. If I was to receive an annoying email (calling me an Idiot), I would most likely shrug it off. It would probably have to rise to the level of quite abusive or threatening before I would report it. I hope that being called an Idiot is one of the worst things that ever happens to you.

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Also, you still have not said what it is that is so threatening. Did Groundspeak handle it appropriately after you contacted them? If not, I would rather discuss that concern, since it is one we would share. Is this a real email or is this just a "what if" type concern? It really appears to be the latter since there have been no details.

As I've said, the discussion is now somewhat academic but it would be impolite not to answer your questions.

 

Yes, these are real emails. Not one but several, over years, and from different users. And they all hid their email addresses. Conversely, no user who hasn't hid their address has been abusive. I think the logic is self-evident. No, I've not been happy with Groundspeak's responses. I'm obviously not prepared to describe individual situations.

 

Opting out of emails, especially if you have caches hidden should not be an option as this is the only way to contact you with concerns.

And I wasn't suggesting it. I'm suggesting opting out of anonymous emails.

 

Again, this appears to be a none issue since GC does not allow, or even encourage, anonymous emails. From other threads I have read, they also seem to respond quickly to threatening emails.

 

If this is as you say "Not one but several, over years, and from different users" I would be examining what you are doing to cause such angst. I can't remember getting any nasty emails, especially as threatening as you are indicating, and only one or two that would be considered rude. With each I had there user name if it became a problem.

 

There is definitely more to this than appears

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Several bear-warners (unlikely in England :laughing: ) have called me an idiot, alll of them anonymously. This is why I wanted some protection against it. Since Groundspeak doesn't want to provide it then I've provided my own. Which is merely following my own advice above :laughing:. I just thought that others might find it useful if Groundspeak provided something so that others didn't have to do it themselves.

Perhaps if there are so many people that consider you to be an idiot (personally, I am not making that judgement at this time), you might want to reconsider your own actions that seem to be provoking people to the point where they feel compelled to correspond with you. If you are judgemental and often throw in off-hand remarks, it can be easy for someone to interpret your comments in a negative fashion. I'm willing to bet that if you refrained from making comments in forums and logs, that these emails would stop.

 

I think it's time for everyone to take owenership of their problems instead of trying to make the societal framework adapt to their personal woes (ie, change the functionality because I get negative emails sent to me). If you were innocent in this, you would receive as many emails as I do... Zero.

 

My two pence,

 

This is not an attack, it is simply a suggestion to take a look at your own behavior as potentially being at least part of the cause.

Edited by MakoKidd
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I understand that email has become a highly personal thing but there are good reasons for allowing any geocacher to contact you. For instance, if a bear has taken up residence at one of your caches you might like to know about it. If the bear-warner calls you an idiot as well, let us know and we'll smack them with the ban stick.

Thanks for the response. Of course there are good reasons for allowing any cacher to contact me, but there are no good reasons for them to do so anonymously.

 

Several bear-warners (unlikely in England :laughing: ) have called me an idiot, alll of them anonymously. This is why I wanted some protection against it. Since Groundspeak doesn't want to provide it then I've provided my own. Which is merely following my own advice above :laughing:. I just thought that others might find it useful if Groundspeak provided something so that others didn't have to do it themselves.

 

But anyway, thanks for listening and for taking the time to respond.

 

As others have pointed out, the emails from Groundspeak are not really "anonymous". I realize that some users might feel more emboldened to be rude if only their GC.com account name is visible, but other than that, I don't see how knowing their outside email address would help you (the recipient) in any way, except perhaps to allow you to retaliate outside the confines of GC.com? Perhaps you could enlighten me.

 

Cheers

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....I never had a problem (since I don't show my email address). A problem would be created if the OP's suggestion were implemented and everyone were forced to show their email address in order to communicate with other geocachers.

 

Sorry, I missed the post you were commenting on. My comment doesn't apply now that I realize what you were driving at.

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I'm willing to bet that if you refrained from making comments in forums and logs, that these emails would stop.

Sorry, I don't get that. I should stop using the facilities of GC.com so that Groundspeak members don't send me abusive emails? Well, yes, it would work since I would then no longer be a member. But it's hardly where I'm trying to get to, is it?

 

Anyway, it's all irrelevant now. I asked Groundspeak, they said no, I've solved the problem for myself. Job done.

 

Thanks for the input.

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I never had a problem (since I don't show my email address). A problem would be created if the OP's suggestion were implemented and everyone were forced to show their email address in order to communicate with other geocachers.

Sorry, you (and I think several others) misunderstand so I've obviously not explained myself very well.

 

I'm not suggesting that everyone should be required to show their email address on the profile page, for the reasons you and others say - it would become susceptible to spam. Indeed, it would be hypocritical of me to make that suggestion, since I don't do it myself :laughing:.

 

What I am suggesting is that when a member uses the profile to mail another member then either the sender should be required to release their address or the recipient should have the option for the mail not to be sent.

 

However, the discussion is academic since Groundspeak have said that they'll be leaving things as they are. Which means that I've had to take my own steps to prevent receiving anonymous mails. That's been made more difficult by Groundspeak's latest change so that all emails now come from noreply@ but it can still be done. I've put a warning on my profile to that effect, but it would have been nice if Groundspeak had implemented it in the same way as the Friends option.

 

I raised the point so that others were aware of the problem, but since everyone who's commented thinks it's OK for members to send anonymous abusive emails to other members then there's nothing more to be said :laughing:

 

I don't like your suggestion to force me to show my email address to the recipient for one big reason. Even if I want to notify someone politely about cache conditions, for example, I don't know that individual and therefore don't necessarily want them to have my email. Not because I don't want them to respond to me, but how will I know what he/she will send me in the future. Shoot, I'd love to ban some of my husband's relatives from our email account because they seem to think I want to participate in chain mail all the time. Once they have my address they can add me to any group of people they want to mail stuff off to. That's spamming in my opinion as well.

 

If you also don't want your email address to be sent back to the person, why not take their online name and go to GC and look them up. You can email them from their profile and they won't see your address either. Sure, it takes a few more minutes of your time, but it protects you, and also keeps everyone else on here safe at the same time.

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Groundspeak says "We respect our users privacy" but its protecting the sender not the recipient.

 

Unfortunately (from my personal perspective) it is not true that Groundspeak respects the privacy of the senders (what they claim comes close to a lie) as it sends along data to the recipient which are in many cases more sensitive than the e-mail address of the sender. This happens regardless of whether or not the sender of the mail chooses to send along his e-mail adress.

 

By the way, some cachers prefer to refrain from sending along their e-mail adress as this avoids some problems with spam filters. Unfortunately, the headers of mails sent via the Groundspeak server are set up in a quite unprofessional way.

 

Cezanne

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