[RFC] Contact Page

These requests for comments/change have lead to an implemented feature that has been successfully merged into the 3.1/Ascraeus branch. Everything listed in this forum will be available in phpBB 3.1.
Post Reply
Marshalrusty
Project Manager
Project Manager
Posts: 273
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:45 am

[RFC] Contact Page

Post by Marshalrusty »

At the moment, phpBB installations provide no way for a non-registered user to contact the administrators of the board. In fact, depending on permissions, even a registered user may not be able to PM administrators. There are many cases where getting in touch with an administrator is very important (DMCA notices, problems with registration, etc.). In fact, some countries require contact information to be readily available on websites.

On a personal note, this results in tons of complaints in my inbox. People follow the link from "powered by phpBB" to our contact page and give me an earful about things we have nothing to do with.

Additionally, we currently list the administrator's email address in plaintext on the registration page. I usually end up forwarding complaints to this email address. Needless to say, listing the email address in plaintext is less than ideal.

Suggestion:
1) Create a default contact page and link to it in the footer of each board.
2) The existing email template may be re-used or at least adapted for this page.
3) Add a new configuration option to the ACP to allow administrators to add a custom message above the textbox
4) The header to the email message should make it clear where the email came from
5) Replace the message on the registration page with a link to the contact page

Notes:
1) A CAPTCHA cannot be used on this page due to accessibility issues.

Oleg
Posts: 1150
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:38 am
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by Oleg »

A ticket had been created for this earlier with some additional details: http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10073

User avatar
naderman
Consultant
Posts: 1727
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 2:11 am
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by naderman »

First version of patch https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb3/pull/210

I haven't implemented a configurable message yet - requires a new table for TEXT configuration. And I have not replaced output of the board_contact email address with links to the contact page yet. Apart from that it should work fine and a Contact us link is available in the footer.

Along the way I refactored the code used for the different email forms and created a phpbb_message class which can be used to send an email and/or jabber message to an arbitrary amount of recipients.

Tests could probably be extended. But they are really needed for the messenger class itself. This code needs functional rather than unit tests. Comments need to be extended too.

User avatar
naderman
Consultant
Posts: 1727
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 2:11 am
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by naderman »

Created a ticket for the TEXT column: http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10202

keith10456
Registered User
Posts: 523
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:29 pm
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by keith10456 »

Excellent idea! Glad to see this is moving forward.

Derky
Development Team
Development Team
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2005 7:50 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by Derky »

Marshalrusty wrote:Needless to say, listing the email address in plaintext is less than ideal.
It's also leaked on the General Error page: Google: intitle:"General Error" "Please notify the board administrator or webmaster"
Marshalrusty wrote:Notes:
1) A CAPTCHA cannot be used on this page due to accessibility issues.
In fact, banned users should be able to access this page as well. (Banning dynamic IP's happens often)
However, an abuse protection should be added either. This to limit spam and flooding. Perhaps a maximum of one e-mail per 24 hours?

/Edit: So I mean to prevent spammers massively flooding phpBB contact forms, we got enough problems with spam already...

User avatar
naim
Registered User
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:21 pm
Location: Isolation
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by naim »

  1. Bravo!
  2. What about protecting the e-mail address with an image (just an image, not a captcha.)
  3. Hope that this page will be optional.

ecwpa
Registered User
Posts: 181
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:10 am
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by ecwpa »

Or maybe a form to contact them. Even a official twitter link would be usefull this days.
Slightly better English than it was in 2005, still improving :D

User avatar
AmigoJack
Registered User
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 7:47 pm
Location: グリーン ヒル ゾーン
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by AmigoJack »

naim wrote:What about protecting the e-mail address with an image (just an image, not a captcha.)
This would eliminate the possibility to copy the address to the clipboard. Or what would you type if you encounter a picture with an ambiguous font typing of Ill______O0@rnmwvvw.net (in another font type: Ill______O0@rnmwvvw.net)? Bots are mostly not intelligent - I guess they could be outsmarted by something like this already, which still stays selectable, so you can CTRL+C it:

Code: Select all

<span>admin</span><strong>&#x40;</strong><span>site.net</span>
naim wrote:Hope that this page will be optional.
That would be the first time in phpBB history. I'd more think of a permission, so you can set guests to deny accessing that page.

User avatar
callumacrae
Former Team Member
Posts: 1046
Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:37 am
Location: England
Contact:

Re: [RFC] Contact Page

Post by callumacrae »

AmigoJack wrote:outsmarted
It wouldn't work. phpBB has a huge amount of users, they'll just recode their bots to decode it.
Made by developers, for developers!
My blog

Post Reply