Email address privacy settings
Sir Wumpus PublicSeen by 70About a year ago there was another discussion on this topic: https://www.loomio.org/d/IhvXWaVZ/privacy-concern-displaying-emails -- the outcome of that discussion was a decision to allow users to set an option to hide their email addresses.
As implemented, the system currently hides everyone's email addresses from normal users, but reveals everyone's email addresses to group coordinators.
I understand that in some groups there may be a need for the coordinators to have access to this information, so I'm not asking for it to be removed entirely. However, my group does NOT require this information to be revealed, even to the group coordinators, and it would be nice to hide it.
I'm not sure what the best implementation of this would be, whether an option per-user to "hide my email address, even from group coordinators", or maybe an option when joining the group, so the email address could be revealed to some but not other group coordinators. Or even an option the coordinator can set during group creation "Don't show me user's email addresses" -- this would likely need to be a permanent option to be effective at all.
@robertguthrie Hopefully this explanation will reduce your head spinning. :)
My group is an organization of video game enthusiasts. We know each other primarily via the web site run by the game company, and we call each other by the pseudonyms that we use within the game. While it is not unheard of for us to share our real names and/or email addresses with others in the group, it's also not the default, being for the most part not needed.
This is not a critical issue for us, but I think that there are at least some members of our group who will avoid making use of loomio until it is addressed. For them the cost of exposing their real life identity slightly exceeds the benefit of participating in decision making.
There likely aren't many people in that group, as most are willing to create throw-away or alternate email addresses to get around the issue. But I feel like it does reduce the scope and diversity of participation we can achieve.
As a coordinator, I use the email addresses of users from the members list
proposal by Robert Guthrie Closed Thu 3 Jul 2014 9:08PM
Please respond if you use or rely upon the email addresses provided from the group membership list to coordinators.
I'd love to hear what task you're completing or problem you're solving by using the email addresses from the list.
Results
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agree | 8 | 62 | 3 |       | |
| Abstain | 1 | 8 | 0 |  | |
| Disagree | 4 | 31 | 1 |    | |
| Block | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Not voted | 263 | 95 |             |
I have no need for the email addresses, and the members of my group would prefer not to share them with me.
I have no need for the email addresses, and some members of my group would prefer not to share them with me.
Not super often, but I have found it useful to have access to group members' email addresses.
exporting email addresses into other systems - inviting loomio group participants to other apps (trello, balsamiq etc.)
yes I have often looked up people's emails via Loomio for various reasons
i have used emails through loomio for contact for the team.
approving invitations to the Translation group and being able to coordinate personal emails with people I'm on-boarding across loomio + transifex.
Makes it a lot easier to keep track and coordinate this process
I haven't used loomio has a coordinator; but I can imagine the ability to send direct email messages; makes me think there should be an option to block a coordinator from accessing it should some want that privacy
This is a basic test of confidentiality: email addresses offered for one purpose must only be used for that purpose. Although it's probably inconvenient and it will slow down the action of some groups, email addresses should be private.
As coordinator of a group, I need to be able to troubleshoot the ability of group members to participate. Being able to tell a member which address they used for membership in the group is essential for being able to help more novice group members.
Access to email addresses direct consent should be acquired, thus I do not agree with coordinators having instant email access to all group members.
Further, a private messaging (to individuals and to multiple group members) would work just fine
Having said that, if I was able to send individual messages to group members, that would remove the usefulness of having their email addresses handy. I've used the 'email all group members' feature within Loomio a few times, which is great to be able to do, but there's something about the mechanism that makes it feel kind of opaque and I'd understand if people felt hesitation in using it. I think that'd be easily fixed by some more attention to UX.
Am I right in concluding (early, I know) that people who use Loomio within something that looks like a high trust organisation want an addressbook feature.
Groups like Enspiral could actually do with sharing more contact information, and other groups would like to share no contact information.
@robertguthrie I think the directory open-app should solve our need for an address book feature and I would rather have the functionality in there than in loomio.
If a circles app was driving who the loomio groups data with an optional directory app for contact info then I would be happy not to have access to any email data via loomio.
@joshuavial only coordinators have access...
so if you want to contact to a member, how will you do it if you don't have the email and you are a coordinator???
I think the solution is easy... an option on the group settings, what each group prefer?
example:
- Visible to all members
- Visible to only coordinators
- Visible to no-one.
I think with these options every group will be happy to act as they want.
@christaklis I think I like the options you present, but I suspect it would be better as a per-user option rather than on the group. That way each user has control over their own level of privacy.
@christaklis and @sirwumpus can I ask you guys to try thinking of this with the "Addressbook" metaphor?
How does that change the settings and the use within the group?
@joshuavial the directory open-app sounds good. Would be nice to integrate it when it's ready.
@sirwumpus i totally agree with you. but if someone hides his/her email and i need to message him/her. what will i do? i am not guru to know his/her mail as a coordinator.
@robertguthrie it's good idea... but i think it's prefered the idea to can send someone message "inside loomio" without knowing his/her email.
Hi @robertguthrie @sirwumpus et al. To step back from the tech conversation, as someone managing a group with a bunch of super-busy people, I use email to give semi-regular updates on the conversation.
Last time I did this through Loomio, though, it cut out the line breaks and formatting, which wasn't a great look. Since then, I've made my own directory elsewhere, and haven't used Loomio's email functionality to provide these updates.
If it was possible to send nice looking email messages (and maybe it is; I haven't tried for a while), then I'd have no need to access user emails, and hiding them wouldn't be an issue.
@mattmcgregor I'm sorry the announcement email feature is a bit shitty. Hopefully it will improve soon, as we're focusing on improving the emails right now. It's not improved in a long time though.
It seems to me that people use email addresses because we are missing some comms features within loomio.
I would like to suggest we remove the emails only when we have these comms features available.
@robertguthrie Thanks! It's definitely not a complaint -- I know you guys are doing a million things at the moment.
+1 on "remove the emails only when we have these comms features available."
@robertguthrie yes that sounds like the correct order of operations.
Online Groups has a feature which allows administrators to request direct contact with members. You get a chance to explain why you need to contact them, so you could ask for an email address if you chose to.
I wonder if an "@all" feature (@mentioning every user in a given group) would be a great replacement to the 'send email notification' feature (and might actually drastically remove the need/want to have email addresses visible to coordinators).
I might even start a separate discussion about this!
@benjaminknightloom I think the answer is "almost".
Email addresses get used for announcements as well as individual contact. Once we get the ability to have individuals listed in the discussion audience we might have it covered.
Thanks for bringing this up @sirwumpus. It's making my head spin a bit, but I can see your point.
I wonder if it is necessary to reveal email addresses at all.. and want to use part of this discussion to ask Users/Coordinators what use cases they have for seeing the user's email addresses.