Contact

One address handles everything on this site: [email protected]. There is no form, no ticket system, and no autoresponder in front of it. Mail sent there is read by Jonah Vail, who writes the site.

Corrections come first

An article here is a record of what a machine did on a given version, and the whole premise falls apart if the record is wrong. Corrections are therefore the mail that gets answered first, and they are welcome even when they are blunt.

A correction is easiest to act on when it carries three things: the address of the page, the sentence that is wrong, and what actually happens instead. If the claim was a measured one, the version you ran matters as much as the result — node --version, the TypeScript version from tsc --version, the browser build. Engine behavior moves between releases, and half the disagreements about JavaScript internals turn out to be two people running different versions and describing both accurately.

When a correction lands, the article is fixed in place and a dated note at the top says what changed. Nothing is quietly rewritten. If you would like credit in that note, say so; if you would rather not be named, say that instead, and the note will record the correction without the source.

Disagreement that is not a correction is also worth sending. “Your explanation of the microtask drain is right but incomplete” is a useful message: it names the gap precisely enough to be filled, and filling it is what a revision is for.

What else gets a reply

Questions about an article, if they are specific. “Why did you use --trace-deopt rather than --trace-opt-verbose” is answerable. “Can you explain V8” is not, and it will get a link rather than an essay.

Permission requests, which are covered in the Terms of Use: quoting a few paragraphs with attribution and a link needs no permission at all, republishing an article in full does, and the answer to the second is usually yes. Translations are the same — ask, and expect a yes with a request to link back to the original.

Requests under the GDPR, described in the Privacy Policy. They are answered within one month, as Article 12(3) requires, and there is no charge.

Article suggestions, with a caveat. A suggestion works here when it names something checkable — a behavior that surprised you, a number you could not explain, a gap between the documentation and what your process actually did. A subject that arrives with a reproduction attached is already half an article; a subject that arrives as a title is not.

Problems with the site rather than an article

Broken pages, a feed that will not parse, a code sample that no longer runs on a current release, a search index that misses an article you know exists: these are worth reporting, and the address is the same one. The site is static HTML on Cloudflare Pages with no server-side code, so almost every fault of that kind is a build that produced the wrong file rather than something failing under you.

What helps: the exact address, the browser and version, and — for a feed or a .md twin — the reader or the command you used. A page that 404s for you and resolves here is usually a stale edge cache, and the first thing to try is the address without a trailing slash removed by a client that decided to be helpful.

Security reports are welcome and there is little attack surface to report on: no accounts, no forms, no database, no code running at request time. If you find something anyway, describe it in the mail rather than publishing it first.

What will not get a reply

Guest posts, sponsored articles, paid link placements, and “content partnerships”. Every article on this site is written and signed off by Jonah Vail on the terms set out in About, that is the byline’s whole meaning, and nothing published here is paid for. Mail proposing otherwise is deleted rather than answered.

Requests to add, change, or remove a link for someone else’s search ranking. Press releases. Product pitches that want coverage. Recruitment mail for unrelated roles.

None of this is a complaint about receiving mail. It is a description of what happens to it, offered so nobody spends time writing a pitch that was never going to land.

How long a reply takes

Usually a few days. The site is written alongside other work, so mail can sit for a week when an article is in progress. Corrections jump that queue.

If two weeks pass with no answer, assume the message went missing rather than that it was ignored, and send it again.

What happens to your message

Your address, your name if you give one, and the contents of your mail are processed to read and answer you, and — for a correction — to fix the article. The legal basis and retention period are set out in section 3 of the Privacy Policy: messages are kept for up to 24 months after the exchange ends, and deleted sooner on request.

Nothing sent here is added to a mailing list, because there is no mailing list. There is no newsletter, no comment section, and no account to create. New articles appear in the RSS feed, which is the only subscription this site has.

For anything about the network this publication belongs to rather than about JS Ledger itself, the imprint has its own address at Cognate Press.