What is standard nettiquette? Cluttering a site used by hundreds of people to ask an admin question to an admin? Yes the poster said he doesn't want to clutter his inbox, but regardless of want isn't that the right place for his question?
I know pg is PG, but that doesn't seem relevant to this.
"if there's some channel I can use that doesn't clutter his inbox"
Since this is standard netiquette, actually his mailbox would be an extremely unusual place for questions like this.