@doctaxon: Why would you not upload an attachment in MediaWiki, if you already use MediaWiki's email system anyway?

@Aklapper: Because some of these attachments are copyrighted and only for private research use. If copyrighted I must not upload the content of these attachments to MediaWiki.

I would be concerned about the increased potential for phising and viruses/other malicious attachments.

In T237503#5643126, @Bawolff wrote:

I would be concerned about the increased potential for phising and viruses/other malicious attachments.

Yeah, same concern here.

In T237503#5639828, @doctaxon wrote:

@Aklapper: Because some of these attachments are copyrighted and only for private research use. If copyrighted I must not upload the content of these attachments to MediaWiki.

Is there reason you'd choose to use Special:EmailUser over a standard e-mail client? Presumably wiki administrators could be given access to users' e-mail addresses. That would probably be less dangerous and cumbersome than adding attachment capability to Special:EmailUser.

This task is a duplicate of T11201: Enable sending e-mail attachments using Special:Emailuser.

In T237503#5643162, @MZMcBride wrote:

Is there reason you'd choose to use Special:EmailUser over a standard e-mail client? Presumably wiki administrators could be given access to users' e-mail addresses. That would probably be less dangerous and cumbersome than adding attachment capability to Special:EmailUser.

Privacy related issues. Even checkusers don't have that kind of ability. I see no reason to give real email access to just admins.

In T237503#5643126, @Bawolff wrote:

I would be concerned about the increased potential for phising and viruses/other malicious attachments.

Why don't you consider antivirus software as freemail providers do, too?

In T237503#5651894, @doctaxon wrote:

In T237503#5643126, @Bawolff wrote:

I would be concerned about the increased potential for phising and viruses/other malicious attachments.

Why don't you consider antivirus software as freemail providers do, too?

Not allowing attachments is much easier/saner than accepting liability for scanning/dealing with attachments and not identifying something that's problematic

In T237503#5651919, @Reedy wrote:

In T237503#5651894, @doctaxon wrote:

In T237503#5643126, @Bawolff wrote:

I would be concerned about the increased potential for phising and viruses/other malicious attachments.

Why don't you consider antivirus software as freemail providers do, too?

Not allowing attachments is much easier/saner than accepting liability for scanning/dealing with attachments and not identifying something that's problematic

The easier way must not exclude other ways w/o at least one trial.

The easier way must not exclude other ways w/o at least one trial.

Must? I mean, watch us do just that :P

To be more serious: If you had a compelling reason for how this would benefit wikimedia, we would look into solutions to mitigate the risks. The rationales provided so far arent, so we probably wont.