Allow multiple contacts?

[justaddcoffee]

Describe the desired behavior

Should we consider allowing multiple contacts? Many of these projects list 4-5 people or more as being the relevant contacts. @caufieldjh thoughts?

[matentzn]

Discussion was had many times in other projects, including obo. In the end, the contact is about accountability not credit. The idea is that one contact makes that person the single accountable POC, multiple contacts muddy the waters. I don't really care either way, just relaying the outcome of that discussion (bioregistry and obo foundry)

[matentzn]

Interesting side discussion that just started: biopragmatics/bioregistry#1385 (comment)

[justaddcoffee]

@matentzn thanks

Best practice might be to use one contact, and have it be the help desk email (e.g. [email protected]) so that it's stable when people leave a project (as @JervenBolleman points out in the thread Nico linked to)

[caufieldjh]

I'm particularly empathetic to these points:

• Curating contacts with the assumption that a particular one will be active and responsive is particularly burdensome
• Providing contact info without explicit consent is not universally appreciated
• "Contact" is a role distinct from "author", "creator", "data manager", or "collectively monitored helpdesk" - it is easy to over-model this space

[sierra-moxon]

+10 to @justaddcoffee's point about allowing "helpdesk" style contact emails. For larger orgs, this is essential to reaching someone consistently over time.

[justaddcoffee]

I think we seem to have decided that contact should be one thing (one person or better yet the a helpdesk email that can survive personnel turnover)?

Assuming that is correct, I'm closing this ticket. Reopen if I'm wrong and there is more to discuss!