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The new warehouse uses the author_email field to create a mailto link. Donald Stufft recommended leaving out the author_email field while still specifying the author field should a maintainer wish to have their name associated without their email.
Conversation with Donald:
https://github.com/pypa/warehouse/issues/2155
Unfortunately, specifying author but not author_email causes the `setup.py check` command to throw an error. "check: missing meta-data: if 'author' supplied, 'author_email' must be supplied too"
I would like to remove that check from being performed given the recommended fix for warehouse. The logic that performs this check is currently in the distutils check command.
https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/distutils/command/check.py
Additionally, AFAICT, it is impossible to disable the metadata check in distutils. I would also like to add a negative option to allow the metadata check to be skipped.

Judging from Éric's reaction on Github, I suspect there may be some reticence to changing this code.
I've sub-classed the check command in the project I'm working on to demonstrate what I would like the new behavior to be.
https://github.com/jambonsw/django-improved-user/blob/4b699814f68cefe6cf7a63f43f619ee21376cb01/setup.py#L34
If that looks interesting and people are open to changes along those lines, I'm happy to discuss, take feedback, and open a PR. Alternatively, I'm happy to see about overriding the check command in pypa/setuptools instead of modifying distutils. If neither of these are of interest, feel free to close this issue.

Not sure how you read that from my comment — I merely wanted to be sure about what the spec said! :)
Most people use setuptools than distutils these days, and it’s mostly unmaintained, so your idea to report this issue to setuptols is the right one. Thanks for the report nonetheless!