Many agencies, such as Treasury, treat e-mail as they do other correspondence. Agencies often try to delineate between technical and policy questions. The White House provides an online form for citizens to e-mail President Clinton or Vice President Gore. The webmasters note, however, that the systems staff only reads questions about technical aspects of the site. The Education Department's home page provides an e-mail link for general inquiries or comments, but the department also provides a link for feedback on the Web site itself.
Some agencies direct e-mail queries to specific offices.
The Housing and Urban Development Department and the Veterans Affairs Department list categories for routing e-mail to offices within in the departments. Filter system HUD webmaster Candis B. Harrison said she gets between 25 and 50 e-mail messages each day. She answers about two-thirds of them and refers the rest to the Web manager, she said. The webmaster is the primary recipient of e- mail at most agencies. The best way to route and handle e-mail is through site design, said Vic Powell, the Agriculture Department's webmaster.