[Pydotorg-redesign] Proposed contact page

[A.M. Kuchling]

Here's proposed text for a 'Contact us' page to live at
www.python.org/contact.html .
If we change all of the ***@python.org mailto links to point to
this page instead,
that may reduce our exposure to virus e-mails. Reactions?

--amk

Title: Contact Us
Content-type: text/x-rst

To get help with Python programming questions, join `the tutor mailing
list <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor>`_, a list
especially for people learning computer programming with Python.
Other mailing lists and newsgroups may also be helpful; see <a href=
"community/lists.html">the guide to Python mailing lists</a> for a
list of available forums.

Programming questions can also be sent to `***@python.org
<mailto:***@python.org>`_, which is staffed by a group of volunteers
who will provide brief answers to questions.

To report problems with the python.org site (errors, broken links,
and typos) or to make suggestions about the material on python.org,
write to `***@python.org <mailto:***@python.org>`_.

[Laura Creighton]

Post by A.M. Kuchling
Here's proposed text for a 'Contact us' page to live at
www.python.org/contact.html .
this page instead,
that may reduce our exposure to virus e-mails. Reactions?
--amk

I don't understand how this helps with the viruses. (I don't disagree,
I just don't understand).

Post by A.M. Kuchling
Title: Contact Us
Content-type: text/x-rst

I would list python-list first for Python programming questions.

Then I would list

_If you are learning how to program_ join the ..

or you could do that in the reverse order, I think.

Post by A.M. Kuchling
To get help with Python programming questions, join `the tutor mailing
list <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor>`_, a list
especially for people learning computer programming with Python.
Other mailing lists and newsgroups may also be helpful; see <a href=
"community/lists.html">the guide to Python mailing lists</a> for a
list of available forums.
who will provide brief answers to questions.
To report problems with the python.org site (errors, broken links,
and typos) or to make suggestions about the material on python.org,

My problem with the proposed solution, is that I would like to refer
to people to the various lists from other places all over the site.
For instance, if we have a CP4E whole portal, which I would like,
then I would like to invite educators who think that educating is
fun to join tutor. I would like to get at tutor via -- looking for
community as well.

Since I don't know how this proposal is supposed to cut down on spam,
I don't know if having a separate page for tutor, which you can link
to from many places, ditto python-list is a compatible solution, or
if it just breaks amk's fix.

The most useful page for me on python.org is a list of all the mailman
maintained mailing lists on python.org. If this is going away, then
I will be very unhappy, and probably never able to find the right
place to mail things again.

Laura

[A.M. Kuchling]

Post by Laura Creighton
I don't understand how this helps with the viruses. (I don't disagree,
I just don't understand).

Most of the current crop of viruses will search the web browser cache
for mailto: links and use the addresses as recipients or as faked
senders. Pretty much every single page on python.org has an 'E-mail
us' and a mailto pointing at webmaster, so anyone who's ever gotten
infected and browsed python.org at some point will likely end up
generating e-mails to us.

(Hmm, http://www.harrison.k12.co.us/tech-support/help/anti-virus/klez.html
is a really nice explanation of how Klez works. Should weblog that page...)

If every page has a 'contact us' link to the same HTML page, and only
that one page has a mailto, that page may only end up in the browser
cache if people explicitly follow that link, and relatively few people
will do that.

The trade-off is that this slightly decreases usability. Also, some

Post by Laura Creighton
I don't know if having a separate page for tutor, which you can link
to from many places, ditto python-list is a compatible solution, or

Having separate pages wouldn't be a problem.

Post by Laura Creighton
The most useful page for me on python.org is a list of all the mailman
maintained mailing lists on python.org. If this is going away, then

Mailman automatically provides such a listing:
mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo . Unfortunately it provides only the
most telegraphic explanation for each list, so the listing isn't very
newbie-friendly.

--amk

[Simon Willison]

Post by A.M. Kuchling
Here's proposed text for a 'Contact us' page to live at
www.python.org/contact.html .
this page instead,
that may reduce our exposure to virus e-mails. Reactions?

If reducing spam to the addresses listed on the site is an issue, one
technique that might prove useful would be to keep all contact emails
hidden away on a page that can only be accessed by an HTTP POST request.
Spam harvesting crawlers exclusively use GET to retrieve pages, so email
addresses on POST generated pages are inaccessible to them. I
demonstrate this technique on the contact page of my blog:

http://simon.incutio.com/contact/

I can't offer much in the way of proof that it works other than to say
that the amount of spam I receive has not noticably increased since I
made my address available on my site in this way.

Cheers,

Simon Willison