No, but think of it this way-- creating good bug reports is a valuable type of contribution for open source projects. If you aren’t able to fix the issue yourself then it is still appreciated to take the time to write up a good bug report (describe the issue, the expected result, the actual result, and steps to reproduce). So don’t let a free account stand in your way 🙂
If the maintainer has an email address, you can email them. But realistically, just create an account, with a throwaway email if you must.
AFAIK, there is not.
No, but accounts are free and it’s easy to sign up.
It is not easy for privacy-conscious users in my experience. They have gone back and forth multiple times on banning registration/login via tor. And whether it’s tor or a common VPN provider, they often will immediately ban you upon first login. Many common private email providers are also blocked. Plus for people that don’t want to give anything to Microsoft or their AI training in the first place, it’s already a non-starter.
It’s still relatively easy to sign up for a major email provider anonymously.
You don’t need to access it through Tor or a VPN to maintain anonymity.
Plus for people that don’t want to give anything to Microsoft or their AI training in the first place, it’s already a non-starter.
The question was about creating an issue. That’s going into the AI whether you logged in or not.
It’s still relatively easy to sign up for a major email provider anonymously.
In my experience, it is actually impossible. Either you get blocked (IP/ASN ban, endless captchas) or it requires SMS confirmation. I have not been able to sign up for any major email provider anonymously. I’m pretty sure that’s by design.
I made a burner gmail semi-recently (in past 2.5 years) without giving them a phone number, but things might have changed since…
Last I tried Outlook/Office.com/whatever it is now was still possible. Obviously don’t use a VPN etc.
Or just get a burner phone of you’re really that paranoid.
Obviously don’t use a VPN
To me this kinda defeats the point of being privacy-conscious.
Why? There’s privacy conscious and then paranoid. Using a VPN to sign up to an email provider you’re using to sign up for another website is definitely the latter. What do you think is going to happen?
I know that my ISP sells my data to third parties, so I prefer not to give it to them willingly. I don’t consider that paranoid.
You may be able to find an email address on the GH page. I think that’s about the least invasive way to report an issue.
I have similar privacy concerns. I email authors / sites when they have typos. There used to be a blog that required having an ex-Twitter account to contact. I never was able to let them know when they had mistakes. In my experience, most authors appreciate a heads-up to correct a mistake, so that was kinda painful for me.
Writing a quality bug report is almost certainly more effort than signing up for github.
As other said, unfortunately not. You can however sometimes find the email of contributors on their profile. If you can’t find it there, they might list another method of contact e.g mastodon or LinkedIn. If not, you can also clone the repository and look at the
git logoutput to retrieve the email. If the email is a “no reply github” email, then you’re SOL and the maintainer really doesn’t want to be contacted - or wants you to join the monopoly and share your data with Microsoft (something other commentators here seem to encourage 🤷).
