Why is it against forum rules to post your e-mail in a message?

College Confidential Community
1

Title is pretty self-explanatory. I’ve seen mods edit e-mail addresses out of posts, and this policy makes no sense to me.

The forum-email/PM system is simply not advanced enough to send complex documents (like formatted essays, for example). So why the ban?

Thanks,

001

2

And why do you cut off the texts in foreign language? Earlier, it was allowed

3

Email addresses aren’t allowed for privacy reasons and to prevent any solicitation/promotion. Our forum software does allow both private messages (by which an email address can be sent) or an email contact (which protects the privacy of the recipient). Of course, if you reply to the email contact, you will expose your email address to the person who contacted you.

English is the official language of the forum. We have no way to evaluate messages in other languages for offensive or promotional content.

Thanks for your cooperation.

4

This makes no sense. For privacy reasons? If someone wants to post their e-mail address for whatever reason (say, to exchange formatted essays which can’t be sent through the forum), why are moderators needed to protect their “privacy”? How does posting an e-mail address violate one’s privacy, anyways?

As for the solicitation/promotion part, can’t that already be accomplished by the private messaging / forum e-mail anyways?

I’d like to suggest that this rule be re-considered…

5

Why not just follow the rules?

6

I’m not very techno-savvy, but I think that having your email in a message makes it vulnerable to those automatic programs that scammers use to collect email addresses. I don’t think that’s an issue if you put your email address in your profile, and of course it isn’t an issue if you use the private message function.

7

besides that, is it that big of a deal? just tell people to email you through your profile