Andrew,
posting the e-mail address of a fellow OpenACS community member who
wrote you in private -no doubt relating to your recent postings- is
rather vindictive.
As pointed out before, the e-mail addresses on openacs.org are not
available to casual visitors. This includes all search engines. Only
other registered community members have access to your e-mail
address. Likewise, you have access to theirs.
To publish the e-mail address of someone who wrote you in private in a
public portion of openacs.org is not very respectful of the privacy of
the members of the community you just joined. This "I'll get you back"
behavior is very inappropriate for someone like yourself who values
his own privacy. You could have written Neophytos in private to
address his message.
You raise legitimate concerns to which you couldn't find adequate
answers. But please don't jump to conclusions. I've been a member of
this vibrant community for close to 4 years and the amount of spam
that I have received as the direct result of my account with
openacs.org is minimal. I don't think that I've received more than 10
messages in those years.
That is not to say that privacy is not a concern. On the contrary. For
example, in the upcoming version of OpenACS (the toolkit) offers
administrators the option to use screen names instead of e-mail
addresses to register.
While your concerns are valid, it would help to express them more open
ended and you'll see a larger audience respond. In my experience the
OpenACS community is one of the most open and friendliest on-line
communities that I know.
My 2 cents.
/Bart
