On Fri, 14 Jun 2024 18:00:37 -0400, avi.e.gross wrote: > I notice that in some recent discussions, we have users who cannot be > replied to directly as their email addresses are not valid ones, and I > believe on purpose. Examples in the thread I was going to reply to are: > > <mailto:henha...@devnull.tb> henha...@devnull.tb > > <mailto:no.email@nospam.invalid> no.email@nospam.invalid > > <mailto:candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> > candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid (user <candycane> is > generated from /dev/urandom) > > I know some here suggest that we only reply to the wider community and > they have a point. But I think there is a role for having some > conversations offline and especially when they are not likely to be > wanted, or even tolerated, by many in the community. > > Using such fake or invalid emails makes it hard to answer the person > directly or perhaps politely ask them for more info on their request or > discuss unrelated common interests. Worse, when I reply, unless I use > reply-all, my mailer sends to them futilely. When I do the reply-all, I > have to edit out their name or get a rejection. >
The spammers won the spam wars, so even if you have someone's real e-mail address, that's no guarantee that you can contact them. You certainly wouldn't be able to contact me at my real e-mail address, unless you also had my phone number, so you could call me and tell me that you sent me an e-mail, and what the subject line was so I can find it. I don't even open my e-mail inbox unless there's a specific message I'm expecting to find there right now. With e-mail addresses being phone-validated, it's not easy to create a new one either. And even if I did, you can't even trust e-mail providers not to give your address out to spammers. The only function e-mail addresses serve now is to positively identify the sender of a Usenet posting so he can be targeted for harassment, lawsuits, or worse. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
