Expert: Katie - 3/29/2007

Question
Hi Katie,
I recently put my self on vacation for about a week. During the time I was on vacation I had 2 questioners send me questions directly to my e-mail. Do I have to answer uninvited questions sent directly to my e-mail address? Since I was gone I didn't check my e-mail for that time so it was about a week before I got the questions. Can the questioners somehow come to this site and affect my rating?
Thanks

Answer
How did they get your email address? Once they have it, I'm afraid there is nothing we can do to prevent them from emailing you directly.

This is one reason why many volunteers choose not to give out their personal email addresses.

Questioners can only rate you for questions that you answer through our interface. But I should warn you there is nothing to stop them from a asking question via the website, then basing their rating for that new question on the answer they received for the one they sent directly to you thru your email address. Hopefully, they will use the same name and you can just reject the question if you think they will do that.