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 reset emails. 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 privacy ) March 6, 2006 - permalink - back to questions

MeFi Mail 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.

There is a little envelope on the header bar of each page of MetaFilter, next to your username. The little envelope will turn orange when new messages are received. To check your Mefi Mail, click the envelope; it will take you to your Mefi Mail inbox.

To send someone Mefi Mail, go to their profile page by clicking their username. 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 MeFi Mail. Users who have blocked MeFi Mail can not send or receive MeFiMail and their profile page will say "MeFi Mail Disabled". To block Mefi Mail on a per-user basis, scroll to the bottom of a Mefi Mail from that user and click "Block this sender." If you have blocked a user and want to unblock them, you can do this from your contacts page at the bottom where it says "Manage blocked senders".

HTML cannot be used in MeFi Mail messages but URLs on a line by themselves will turn into hyperlinks. Banned or time-outed users cannot use or access MeFiMail.

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

MeFi mail is meant for really lightweight in-site private messages so we skimped on the features purposely. Adding features to make it more email-like isn't something we're likely to do.
(tags: mefimail email mail features ) January 3, 2009 - permalink - back to questions