Add mailto: link to names of committers that do not have accounts #11543

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2025-11-02T09:40:40-06:00

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-02 09:40:40 -06:00

Originally created by @n0toose on GitHub (Aug 26, 2023).

Feature Description

I think it would be great if Gitea had a mailto: link to the names of committers (e.g. in a commit summary or in the repository overview that shows the latest commit made to the main branch) on repositories that do not have accounts instead of a link to a profile (as it doesn't exist).

It would be marginally useful for e.g. mirrors of repositories in locally hosted instances. Of course, I believe that such a link should only be shown to users that are logged in to the instance itself, in order to mitigate the potential problem of subjecting non-users of public instances to spam. I generally find the way that GitHub lacks the situation where an account doesn't exist a bit awkward (Example: recent Linux commit - when you assume that everyone has an account, it feels a bit "awkward" when you try to hover over the name and realize that you can't click on it to find out more about the committer), as it assumes that every contributor is expected to have an account

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Originally created by @n0toose on GitHub (Aug 26, 2023). ### Feature Description I think it would be great if Gitea had a `mailto:` link to the names of committers (e.g. in a commit summary or in the repository overview that shows the latest commit made to the main branch) on repositories that do not have accounts instead of a link to a profile (as it doesn't exist). It would be marginally useful for e.g. mirrors of repositories in locally hosted instances. Of course, I believe that such a link should only be shown to users that are logged in to the instance itself, in order to mitigate the potential problem of subjecting non-users of public instances to spam. I generally find the way that GitHub lacks the situation where an account doesn't exist a bit awkward (Example: [recent Linux commit](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/8e51830e29e12670b4c10df070a4ea4c9593e961) - when you assume that everyone has an account, it feels a bit "awkward" when you try to hover over the name and realize that you can't click on it to find out more about the committer), as it assumes that every contributor is expected to have an account ### Screenshots _No response_

GiteaMirror added the type/proposal label 2025-11-02 09:40:40 -06:00

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-02 09:40:41 -06:00

@jolheiser commented on GitHub (Aug 26, 2023):

Interesting idea, but it would also be awkward to click on a username and open a mail client when you expected to go to a web page.
As well, since your git email can be anything, it may not even point to a valid email, which might not be great UX.
Thoughts? Would that be better than having plain text still?

@jolheiser commented on GitHub (Aug 26, 2023): Interesting idea, but it would also be awkward to click on a username and open a mail client when you expected to go to a web page. As well, since your git email can be anything, it may not even point to a valid email, which might not be great UX. Thoughts? Would that be better than having plain text still?

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-02 09:40:41 -06:00

@delvh commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023):

What we could do without much repercussion is use a link but style it differently, i.e. applying an extra style class so that it will still be displayed as a link but visibly different from any other link, i.e. using green text instead of blue one.
That might work.

@delvh commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023): What we could do without much repercussion is use a link **but style it differently**, i.e. applying an extra style class so that it will still be displayed as a link but visibly different from any other link, i.e. using green text instead of blue one. That might work.

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-02 09:40:41 -06:00

@techknowlogick commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023):

FWIW when this was exposed for gpg keys there were crawlers fetching and spamming these emails. I know you can easily get this info from git cloning, but those crawlers don't usually support git clone.

@techknowlogick commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023): FWIW when this was exposed for gpg keys there were crawlers fetching and spamming these emails. I know you can easily get this info from git cloning, but those crawlers don't usually support git clone.

GiteaMirror commented

2025-11-02 09:40:41 -06:00

@n0toose commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023):

FWIW when this was exposed for gpg keys there were crawlers fetching and spamming these emails. I know you can easily get this info from git cloning, but those crawlers don't usually support git clone.

As mentioned in the original post, this is why I would only want to make this information accessible using the UI only when the user is logged in.

I agree with the other posts here, it might be best to not closely imitate the UI of another platform and surprise users in the process. The color idea is interesting because it follows the same concept as, say, Wikipedia - but I think that the additional theme maintenance overhead would make alternative options (perhaps an icon) possibly better in the long run (?)

@n0toose commented on GitHub (Aug 27, 2023): > FWIW when this was exposed for gpg keys there were crawlers fetching and spamming these emails. I know you can easily get this info from git cloning, but those crawlers don't usually support git clone. As mentioned in the original post, this is why I would only want to make this information accessible using the UI only when the user is logged in. I agree with the other posts here, it might be best to not closely imitate the UI of another platform and surprise users in the process. The color idea is interesting because it follows the same concept as, say, Wikipedia - but I think that the additional theme maintenance overhead would make alternative options (perhaps an icon) possibly better in the long run (?)

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Reference: github-starred/gitea#11543

Add mailto: link to names of committers that do not have accounts #11543

Feature Description

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Add `mailto:` link to names of committers that do not have accounts #11543