Where do the [email protected] email addresses go?

Question

I've searched for an answer to this unanswered now answered question and also tried to find out who receives emails to [email protected] email addresses.

Do moderators receive these emails? For instance, if I email [email protected], will the moderators of that site receive those emails?

Recently, a 1 reputation user tried to contact a moderator through that moderator's workplace contact form! The email was benign. The user had a legitimate question but didn't know the appropriate way to contact the moderator.

I was thinking the team+sitename addresses could/may already serve this purpose. I checked the Stack Exchange Moderator FAQ and didn't find any information on this topic.

• Are these emails sent to moderators? If so, is it appropriate for moderators to list these addresses in his/her profile or to add a link to the About page for the SE site in his/her profile?

• If the emails are not sent to moderators, is this something we can add as forwarding rules, or is that too difficult to manage?

• If the first and second options are not good options, would it be possible to have a contact form on the About page that does send emails to moderators?

• If neither of those are good options, what should the moderator tell the 1 rep user who tried to contact him, since posting on meta is clearly not a viable option for this person, unless of course he/she can gain an upvote.

• Of course, if the answer to this is "The community team will forward the questions onto the moderators" then this would work as well, so long as we know what's appropriate.

Lastly, can we add the answers to this to the Moderator FAQ?

Answer 1

Are these emails sent to moderators? If so, is it appropriate for moderators to list these addresses in his/her profile or to add a link to the About page for the SE site in his/her profile?

These addresses go to employees only. Moderators are not copied on any of the communications.

Having a moderator use it as contact info would be pretty inappropriate (and also useless).

If the emails are not sent to moderators, is this something we can add as forwarding rules, or is that too difficult to manage?

There's no need. The whole point is that these addresses allow users to contact the SE team with issues that moderators cannot or should not handle.

If the first and second options are not good options, would it be possible to have a contact form on the About page that does send emails to moderators?

We strongly discourage contacting moderators by email. If at all possible, all communications between users and moderators should happen on the site where they can be sanity checked by other moderators, the community team, and other users (in case of public communications like comments, meta questions, and chat).

If neither of those are good options, what should the moderator tell the 1 rep user who tried to contact him, since posting on meta is clearly not a viable option for this person, unless of course he/she can gain an upvote.

This depends slightly on the nature of the communication between the user and the moderator. If you must respond via email (or at all), cc all responses to [email protected] so that we're aware of what's going on and can provide the review/oversight that's missing as a result of the conversation happening outside our network.

The best approach, of course, is to redirect to meta whenever possible.

Of course, if the answer to this is "The community team will forward the questions onto the moderators" then this would work as well, so long as we know what's appropriate.

We are periodically contacted about various moderators and we bring those discussions to those moderators (or generalize them into something relevant to the entire mod crew) when needed.

See also: How do I contact a user privately, as a moderator?