[Web4lib] web forms

[Robert Pesale]

We had suffered from similar spamming problems through our web forms.  After spending some time researching a solution, we found a site called Just Humans: http://www.justhumans.com/.  They use a technique of randomizing the order of 6 clickable pictures as well as randomizing the request of which picture you are supposed to click on in order to submit the form.
 
I have duplicated the idea for our web forms as you can see here:
http://www.wblib.org/research/assignalert.php  as you refresh the page you will see that the order of the images change randomly as well as what you are being asked to click on.
 
After implementing this submission feature along with forcing certain input boxes on the forms to contain data we have eliminated our spam to a few a month, sometimes even none.  I hope this helps.
 
 
Robert Pesale
Coordinator of Information Technology
West Bloomfield Township Public Library
4600 Walnut Lake Road
West Bloomfield, Michigan 48323
(248) 232-2200

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Kerry Sullivan
Sent: Fri 8/8/2008 9:49 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] web forms



I have little to no control over our web presence anymore, but we recently
experienced a massive spamming of all of our online forms for the entire
organization.  We received thousands of emails overnight from multiple
forms.  We have since disabled our forms and our web programmer is working
on creating the forms in Flash.  He is extremely backed up and has not made
much progress and in the meantime our users do without.

I have noticed that there are a number of libraries' websites that have
these forms.  How do they have them hanging out there and not get spammed
like we did?  What are we doing wrong?  I welcome any suggestions or shared
frustration from a similar experience.

Thank you,

Kerry

______________________________

Kerry Sullivan, MLIS

AHEC Library & IRC

(Tel) 704.355.3874

http://www.charlotteahec.org <http://www.charlotteahec.org/> 
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