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.
I’m less likely to reply if…
- 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.
Other channels
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.