Re: email addresses in texinfo

[Bruno Haible]

Karl Berry wrote to bug-gnulib:
>     address@hidden<bug-gnulib at gnu dot org>}.
>     address@hidden@code{<bug-gnulib at gnu dot org>}}.
> 
> Personally, I don't see a reason not to use @email here.  That's why it
> exists.

How can @email be combined with anti-spam devices? The more an email address
is mentioned on the web, the more it attracts spam, and the more spam passes
the spam filters.

Here's my wishlist for a macro that shows email addresses with anti-spam:

  - In HTML output, anti-spam cannot be combined with <a href="mailto:...";>
    since there is no way to hide the address here. There are many anti-spam
    devices, see [1], [2]. The properties that I find most desirable are:
      - The address is displayed without modifications.
      - Copy&paste of the address returns the address without modifications.
      - Extracting the address requires more than simple processing
        (elimination of HTML comments, conversion of &#nn; character names,
        conversion of %nn in URLs).
      - It should also work reasonably when JavaScript is deactivated or in
        text-browsers without JavaScript and CSS2.
    Based on these requirements, my preferred anti-spam device is this:

        <tt>&lt;bug-gnulib<span style="display:none">-nospam</span>&#64;<span 
style="display:none">nospam.</span>gnu.org&gt;</tt>

    or a variation of it (see attached file) that uses JavaScript to fix
    copy&paste in Firefox.

  - In DVI, PS, PDF output, I don't care much about anti-spam, since these
    formats are hard to parse automatically.

  - In plain-text output, I don't care much about anti-spam either, since this
    format is rarely used on the web.

Could something like this be added into texinfo?

Bruno


[1] http://www.csarven.ca/hiding-email-addresses
[2] 
http://www.ssmedia.com/index.cfm/articles-how_do_i_protect_my_email_address.htm



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