G2G: I have an idea for a new WikiTree Feature

Question

It may already exist and I just don't know about it.  I just finished emailing another member who I've exchanged a few emails with about a project we have in common.  It occurred to me that some kind of feature would be helpful where we could bookmark or save the profile IDs, with their contact email addresses, of people we expect to have repeated contact with.  Does that read well?  I'd like to have, @ my profile, a list of WikiTree friends' IDs and their email addresses to make it easier to contact them.  Just an idea.  Thank you.

Answer 1

Great idea!

Answer 2

Wikitree has built-in private messaging for contacting members.

Answer 3

Can you add them as a group in your email contact list?

Answer 4

Your idea has merit. It would be nice to be able to set up such a collection of contacts.

I set up a separate list in my email server just for my frequent WikiTree contacts. Seems to work pretty good.

Another thought that may work. I believe it is in the Browser extension or app (I get ext and apps confused) but we have the ability to make special Watchlists. You could put your contacts there but you may get a ton of notices.

Answer 5

I have a Free Space page set up with all my cousins, how they are related and their email address.  So, until a better way is created, this might be an option.  You could set the privacy settings so only you could see.

Comments

Hiya, David. That lightbulb image is watermarked as being the property of stock photo company 123RF. Images licensed for royalty-free use don't carry watermarks like that, so this one probably shouldn't be on WikiTree since it's under copyright and unlicensed.

Answer 6

I can see keeping the WikiTree Id, either in a space page or the WBE extension special watchlist.

As for keeping the email addresses, this should be done offline so that they don't get exposed (e.g., security risk)

Comments

I very much agree with Kay's answer. As noted in the WikiTree Privacy Policy:

We have implemented commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to secure your Personal Information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, disclosure, use, or alteration. However, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized third parties will never be able to defeat our measures or use your Personal Information for improper purposes.

This is a standard disclaimer across the internet, and understandably so. Websites--like WikiTree--store our personal information, the private information used to authenticate us with the site, in one of various encrypted formats. This means our passwords and email addresses are never stored in plain text, but as an unrecognizable jumble of random characters and numerals.

This is not the case if you place an email address into a profile or FreeSpace page. They are stored exactly as entered, in plain text. The only thing that protects them from being visible to spambots and email harvesters is the WikiTree permissions setting. This is not a form of encryption; it's merely a matter of who has rights to see what; in webspeak, it's often an ACL, Access Control List. Any website, including WikiTree, has less control over that than it does encrypted data.

Because most people, unfortunately, use the same email address throughout the myriad of sites where they complete registrations--including financial institutions, insurance companies, even government and tax entities--our email addresses are information sought after by hackers.

WikiTree introduced in March 2021 measures that prevented profiles and profile comments from being saved if email addresses had been entered. From other comments in this thread, that restriction evidently wasn't made to extend to FreeSpace pages. But I believe it should.

I don't award "best answers" until the person who asked the Question has time to decide from multiple answers, but Kay would get my star for this one. We really should manage our email contact addresses outside of WikiTree. It shouldn't--in fact, can't--be WikiTree's responsibility to keep personal lists of email addresses secure "from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, disclosure, use, or alteration."

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Thank you for pointing out that emails can still be saved to FSPs. That needs to be fixed.

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Most email clients have an option to set up mailing groups.  It would be much easier to do it that wat, especially once you have already exchanged emails with someone.

Answer 7

If you are exchanging emails with a WT member, why not just save them in a WT Contacts folder on your email?

Answer 8

May not be what you are looking for, but if it is not private, I would recommend the Wikitree space page on Facebook.  This would give the opportunity to meet new people, and all existing friends could follow along.