In Apple Mail there is a function "Bounce" that sends the message back to the sender formated like a mailer daemon error message. I'm not proud to use it but sometimes it is an easy way to get rid of obtrusive people and to save your health.

Earl,

You've made yourself indispensable to us and now you need to start thinking more like a public figure and less like a philanthropic individual. Some people will take your efforts for granted! Consider some of the following options:

• Get someone to manage your communication
• Recruit coders
• Move towards project management, and/or training
• Find some way of generating income from module maintenance

Hiding your email address is just a quick fix, and won't address the problem of your being spread too thin across several important projects.

If you can't scale up, then you're perfectly within your rights to scale down. You could be responsible for building and maintaining less code.

The important thing is that your contribution is made gladly, and not under duress!

Not that it would stop all unwanted e-mail, but what if users could specify a "help" message for their contact page where they can warn off unwanted contacts and link them to the appropriate feedback channels? Do you think that would even work?

(Not that it's very possible with the contact module as is. : )

You still had it on? LOL! Considering the amount of emails _I_ get and I'm no where near as famous in the community as you, I'm surprised you hadn't turned it off ages ago. I still have mine on but there are some days... Anyone who really needs to get a hold of you will know how to find you anyway.

Enjoy the (hopefully) slow down in support requests.

Michelle

Hello kind sir,

I was just on the drupal.org site and I was wondering if you could help me with a problem I am having with your module. It seems to be...just kidding.

I think the most difficult thing a person who has dedicated themselves to open-source development can do is to tell people no. Congratulations on doing something difficult and necessary to keep yourself sane. Your act of self-preservation will help us all in the end.

Cheers,
Rob Knight

Earl,

it's great to see that Sam Boyer is an active co-maintainer of Panels now.

The cause for support requests is clear: You've created a bunch of stunning modules that have revolutionized how users build sites with Drupal. However, their success is also their weakness. The amount of open issues in Views' and Panels' queues is abnormal. It's absolutely clear that you can't manage and clean those queues on your own.

In the end, I think you badly need a co-maintainer for Views, too. At least one. The more the better.

Thanks,
Daniel

I think the drupal site design must contribute to the fact the people are missing/circumventing the provided means for support and trying to contact you directly. The drupal site is really poorly done.

Placing the support links on the top of the project page horizontally or to the left where they're hard to miss would go a long way in alleviating misguided contacts. I know this is out of your hands of course, I'm just noting something that I think contributes.

Hi,

Earl, at first thanks a lot for all your hard work and personnaly answering my questions. The latest reply of you, I understand that I had to stop asking, so I did. Although still not having succeeded in the answering, but thats another thing. I think you are absolutely right to say No.

But your answers are almost always to the point, and that's the case if you know so much more than others..
But to move to solutions ..why do not make a sort of helpdesk-process.. where the questions are first answered through first-line support, second-line support and only in the end if the questions have a certain value or depth get to the experts?

Will this not help experts like you only having answering interested questions and getting energy from this?

Just a thought..

Greetings,
Martijn

I applaud you for what you have done. The problem is that as drupal becomes more widely known and seduces the inexperienced (read clueless) to give it a try, folks like you -- whose contributions to drupal are as important as the script itself, as far as I am concerned (i.e., without Views and Panels and your contributions to CCK drupal would be infinitely more difficult to use) -- are vulnerable to such intrusions. I subscribe to your blog and try to read all your posts on drupal.org, and I recommend others do the same. I believe that your reputation entitles you to start charging for email advice, although I personally recognize that such a step stands in sharp contrast to the profound intellectual generosity you have demonstrated to the drupal community over the years. Regards.

Earl - Thanks for what you've done for Drupal, and the thousands of individuals and companies who depend on it.

I like that you have a Wishlist published... perhaps some of us that don't code, design, or moderate (just complain ;D) should repay your hard work over the years with a modest gift?