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I agree. I asked about this a while ago on Super User: http://superuser.com/questions/235937/does-e-mail-address-obfuscation-actually-work http://superuser.com

by kylec 14y ago

I agree. I asked about this a while ago on Super User: http://superuser.com/questions/235937/does-e-mail-address-obfuscation-actually-work http://superuser.com/questions/235937/does-e-mail-address-ob... The top answer links to a study done a few years ago that showed that revealing your email in plain text did result in increased spam, but I don't think the study went into how effectively that spam was handled by modern spam filters. In my own person experience, I've had my email address on my HN profile, Twitter page, personal website, Stack Exchange profiles, etc for years without any problem. I do get the occasional rare piece of spam but I think that it's more than offset by providing a no-nonsense way for people to contact me.

FaceKicker 14y ago
Regardless of the effectiveness of spam filters (unless they are literally perfect - 100% precision and 100% recall), doing something like the "Building with Javascript" method seems strictly better than doing nothing based on the linked study - it reduces spam by 99.3% and adds no work for humans who want to email you. Except for humans who have JS disabled by default, I guess...
- nickknw 14y ago
  That's exactly why I use a combination method on my personal website[0]. By default it uses the JS method for a clickable link, but if someone doesn't have JS enabled it degrades to "Email: nick at this domain (For a clickable link, turn on javascript)". It relies on the assumption that 'someone not using javascript' == 'someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means', but for the people that are likely to be reading my site, I think that's a pretty safe assumption to make. [0] - http://nickknowlson.com/contact/ http://nickknowlson.com/contact/
  - weinzierl 14y ago
    'someone not using javascript' == 'someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means' || crawler
    - nickknw 14y ago
      Are you saying: 'someone not using javascript' == ('someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means' || crawler)? If so, yes that's the point. I don't want to give crawlers my email address.

by kylec 14y ago

FaceKicker 14y ago

Regardless of the effectiveness of spam filters (unless they are literally perfect - 100% precision and 100% recall), doing something like the "Building with Javascript" method seems strictly better than doing nothing based on the linked study - it reduces spam by 99.3% and adds no work for humans who want to email you. Except for humans who have JS disabled by default, I guess...

nickknw 14y ago
That's exactly why I use a combination method on my personal website[0]. By default it uses the JS method for a clickable link, but if someone doesn't have JS enabled it degrades to "Email: nick at this domain (For a clickable link, turn on javascript)". It relies on the assumption that 'someone not using javascript' == 'someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means', but for the people that are likely to be reading my site, I think that's a pretty safe assumption to make. [0] - http://nickknowlson.com/contact/ http://nickknowlson.com/contact/
- weinzierl 14y ago
  'someone not using javascript' == 'someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means' || crawler
  - nickknw 14y ago
    Are you saying: 'someone not using javascript' == ('someone computer-savvy enough to figure out what that means' || crawler)? If so, yes that's the point. I don't want to give crawlers my email address.