Feature Request: User email address hide publicly

[kezzbracey]

At the moment we have the ability to user {{author.email}} in themes, which is great for creating a mailto: link if users would like it to be there.

However if a user doesn't want their email address public and the theme they use shows it, they can't delete their address from the user settings field as it's required for notifications.

As such the options at present are:

• Themes don't use the {{author.email}} tag to ensure privacy
• Themes do use the tag and users have to delete it if they don't want their email shown

It would be great if there were an option in the admin settings UI that a user could switch to determine whether a theme could access their email address or not.

That way themes could safely use the {{author.email}} tag to create mailto: links for those who want them, without comprimising the privacy of those who don't.

[ErisDS]

After some thought, and considering our default position is "don't add a setting unless you have to", I think we need to just remove email from being accessible by themes all together.

[kezzbracey]

Sounds like a better choice. If people want to provide an email address they can always do it via a page.

[halfdan]

Not sure - I can totally see themes using author.email when we have user pages and e.g. larger websites want to show author/editor contact details.

[ErisDS]

Apps will let people define all the custom fields they like, but we need to be pro privacy. We should make sure that {{author.email}} doesn't create an error, but I really don't think it's used by many themes.

[kezzbracey]

Yes I think you're right given spam issues.

My guess is that even if people do want to offer the ability to be contacted they'll prefer third party contact forms with captcha or social media links so emails don't get scraped by bots.