Re: email addresses in texinfo

[Bruno Haible]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> FWIW, I kinda doubt this makes any difference for gnu.org mailing list
> addresses (and I have a small doubt about your last implication), with
> the address being up on the gnulib home page anyway.

I believe the number of copies on the web matters. GNU manuals tend to be
replicated quite often. For example, a web search for the autoconf manual
turns up 93 copies, and a web search for the gettext manual finds 50 copies.
With the email address being protected in the manual, the address will still
catch spam, but not as much.

> The listhelper is
> quite powerful in killing virtually all spam (thanks Bruce and Karl!),

The proposal for a spam-protecting @email like macro would help all addresses
that are mentioned in texinfo manuals, not just the lists hosted on
lists.gnu.org.

Additionally, you don't know how the race of arms between the spammers and the
spam filter authors will develop.

> here's another argument: be kind to
> your users by making it easy for them to respond.

From the user's view, I'm essentially only proposing to remove the 'mailto'
link in HTML. The user cannot reply directly when he is reading a manual in
PDF, Postscript, DVI, or plain text format; he has to copy&paste or retype
the address. I'm only proposing to do the same in HTML.

Bruno