TWiki and E-Mail Addresses

TWiki uses e-mail address in two ways. Details follow.

Collection

When you register a TWiki user account, the system prompts you for an e-mail address. That e-mail address is used in two ways:

• It is added to your TWiki user page (e.g., Main.TWikiGuest)
• It is stored in TWiki's internal user database, along with your password and other account details

The former is visible to anyone on the Internet. The latter is visible only to TWiki server admins (and then only if they go digging around in the server's internals).

Usage

On your user page, any email address listed provides a way for other users to contact you. It has no other purpose.

The email address(es) registered with your TWiki account in the user database is used when the TWiki software needs to contact you. The major use of this is for password resets; the reset details are mailed to your registered address. It is also used if you subscribe to notifications of changes.

Removal

You can edit your TWiki user page to remove your email address. This action will remove your email address from anonymous public view. Your email address may or may not still be visible to other registered users in the page edit history (the author believes it is removed for everyone in newer TWiki installation, but old installations behaved differently, and the author may be overlooking something).

You can remove your email address from the TWiki user database by going to the ChangeEmailAddress form and using a blank entry for the new email address. This is not recommended, as it means if you forget your password, you will be unable to recover access to your account. Again, the user database is private; having your email address there should be of minimal risk.

Other

On this site (the GNHLUG wiki), all user pages are default protected against editing by other users, so having a blank account email is otherwise harmless.

However, the default TWiki installation allows users to edit the pages of other users. If TWiki needs to email you, and your e-mail address field in the user database is blank, TWiki will check your user page for a setting like * Set Email = user@example.com, and use that instead. If someone else can edit your user page, they can add that setting using an email address they control, request a password reset, and take over your account. So on a default TWiki installation, it is very important to have a valid email address in the (private) user database.