Emailing me

June 6, 2026

You can reach me at mwp1@cornell.edu. I read every email, but I don’t always reply. Here’s what tends to get a response — and what doesn’t.

I’m more likely to reply if…

You’ve done the reading. If your question is already answered in a blog post, the Skip docs, the F-Droid docs, or a project README, point me at the part that’s still unclear instead of asking from scratch.
You’re sharing something specific. A concrete bug report, a patch, an interesting use case, a correction to one of my posts — these are always welcome.
You have shared context. Cornell, F-Droid, JLine, OpenJPA, Stanza, Skip, App Fair, the broader JVM / Apple / Android open-source world — if our paths have crossed, mention how.
You wrote it yourself. Plain prose from a real person beats a polished pitch every time.

It’s an open-source support question. Please file a GitHub issue on the relevant project (Skip, App Fair, JLine, etc.) so the answer is searchable for the next person.
It’s a cold sales pitch, recruiter email, or “quick call” request. I’m not looking for new employment, and I do most of my best thinking in writing.
It’s clearly templated or AI-generated. I can tell, and so can you.
It needs a long answer to a vague question. “What do you think about X?” is hard to reply to in a way that’s useful. A pointed question is much easier.

If email isn’t the right fit, I’m also on Mastodon and LinkedIn.

None of this is meant unkindly — I just want to be honest about what I can respond to, so you don’t wait around expecting a reply that isn’t coming.