Contacting a Forgejo user privately #68

wetneb commented 2026年05月19日 16:21:08 +02:00

Warning

Please read this section of the README before interacting in the issue tracker.
We might remove comments that don't fit here. This is unfortunately necessary, because respect for design work is not yet common in Free/Libre Software projects.

Content

Motivation

While most conversations in FOSS projects should happen in public, there are cases where private communication is a better option. This is for instance the case when disclosing vulnerabilities, attempting to defuse a conflict, providing emotional support or coordinating an in-person meeting, for instance. Sarah Novotny makes this argument much better than I can in her blog post Open source needs private spaces.

It is not uncommon for forge users to carefully hide their identity, sometimes without leaving any way of contacting them. Forge platforms like Forgejo or GitHub don't have any private messaging features (one convoluted way would be to create a private
repository, invite the recipient to it, and then create an issue in that private repository).

Instead of implementing yet another private message system in a forge like Forgejo, one could take inspiration from the way MediaWiki offers this feature.
This platforms offers an "Email this user" form, which lets any logged-in user send an email to another user through this form. This doesn't disclose the email address of the recipient but that of the sender. The recipient is free to reply to the email,
which lets the two users continue their conversation off-platform.

The "Email this user" button is activated by default, but users are able to disable it in their settings if they do not want to be contacted in this way.

Design

I am just including screenshots from MediaWiki: of course, if I were to implement this, I would integrate it in the existing design system of Forgejo.

• Link to the feature from a user profile
• Actual form to send the email

> **Warning** > Please read [this section of the README](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/design#what-you-can-do-here) before interacting in the issue tracker. > We might remove comments that don't fit here. This is unfortunately necessary, because respect for design work is not yet common in Free/Libre Software projects. ### Content ### Motivation While most conversations in FOSS projects should happen in public, there are cases where private communication is a better option. This is for instance the case when disclosing vulnerabilities, attempting to defuse a conflict, providing emotional support or coordinating an in-person meeting, for instance. [Sarah Novotny](https://sarahnovotny.com/) makes this argument much better than I can in her blog post [Open source needs private spaces](https://sarahnovotny.com/2026/04/14/open-source-governance-needs-private-spaces/). It is not uncommon for forge users to carefully hide their identity, sometimes without leaving any way of contacting them. Forge platforms like Forgejo or GitHub don't have any private messaging features (one convoluted way would be to create a private repository, invite the recipient to it, and then create an issue in that private repository). Instead of implementing yet another private message system in a forge like Forgejo, one could take inspiration from the way MediaWiki offers this feature. This platforms offers an "Email this user" form, which lets any logged-in user send an email to another user through this form. This doesn't disclose the email address of the recipient but that of the sender. The recipient is free to reply to the email, which lets the two users continue their conversation off-platform. The "Email this user" button is activated by default, but users are able to disable it in their settings if they do not want to be contacted in this way. ### Design I am just including screenshots from MediaWiki: of course, if I were to implement this, I would integrate it in the existing design system of Forgejo. * [Link to the feature from a user profile](/attachments/22a479d4-0a5a-4944-8bd4-a09b5be819a8) * [Actual form to send the email](/attachments/80285458-3e31-46ce-8386-bf0e63940611)