Another good idea is to have more than one email address and designate each of them for a particular purpose
Very true, but man, you'd be surprised how many people have only one e-mail--usually something Google-based, which they've had for years (not sure if Hotmail is owned by them or not, but that was popular back in the day).
As for me, I've given up on Google's e-mail service after using it for a long ass time. Let's just say I've become concerned about privacy, and using Gmail is about as good as having Facebook or Twitter provide you with an address.
Nobody here should be making their e-mail public via that field in your profile page--if you were to put the e-mail address that you actually use for whatever you use it for, you're just asking to be buried under a mountain of spam e-mails. Not so long ago I accidentally took a screenshot of my profile and posted it in a thread without realizing I hadn't blurred out my e-mail. Someone was kind enough to PM me about it, but fortunately what I'd entered was a throwaway address. Had it been my day-to-day one, I might have been in trouble.
Keep yo' shit private, dawg.
