You need to register a working email address in your profile. Only site admins can see that and may use it to contact you, as well as send password reminders. You cannot remove your email entirely, but by default it is hidden from everyone else and not shown on your profile page. Your email address will only show up to registered logged-in users if you set your preferences to show it, otherwise it doesn't show up on your user page at all.

However, being contactable by other users can sometimes be advantageous. Many members use a semi-disposable address for MetaFilter only so that people can contact them. The admins also have the email address you used when you signed up, and may use it to contact you for admin reasons. They will not give out this address, and it is not available to other users. You can use MeFiMail for contacting other users and being contacted if you don't want to have a user-facing email address.

You can edit your email address and the rest of your profile details by clicking on the preferences link at the top or bottom of the page when you are logged in.
(tags: email profile userpage mefimail mail ) March 6, 2006 - back to questions

MeFiMail is a private messaging system for MetaFilter users and allows contact with users who may not have an email address in their profile. It is enabled by default but can be turned off in the profile editing area. Members can opt to have these messages sent directly to their profile email address. When new messages are received the little envelope will turn orange on the header bar of each page of MetaFilter.

Members that have this option enabled will have a "send MeFi Mail" option visible on their profile page underneath their username that can be used to contact them. Users can also opt to block MeFiMail messages from another user. HTML cannot be used in MeFiMail messages but URLs will turn into hyperlinks. Banned users cannot use or access MeFiMail.

Unless you have specific permission, reposting someone's MeFiMail is a violation of site guidelines. Do not use MeFiMail to harass or stalk other users. Abusing MeFiMail in this way can result in your account being banned.
(tags: mefimail mail profile pm ) October 20, 2007 - back to questions