Allow admin board to activate captcha also on contact form

[peopleinside]

Hi,
i want ask if in the next version of the forum you can consider to allow board admin to activate captcha also on the contact form.

This can be done with an optional checkbox. Why this? I see some spambot has started to attack the forum on the contact form page.
I start a discussion on the phpbb support forum here.

As from admin i never understand why the forum is protected from bot registration but not from spamming message on the contact form.
The support has given to me an interesting explain: what to do if an user cannot register for the captcha and cannot contact you on the contact form because is protected?

I suppose if the user has issue with the captcha the issue is not on the forum but on the user. If is in the forum the forum should not show captcha if this is not working but i see for ReCaptcha all necessary check on the setup process are done.

Anyway admin board should have a possibility to decide to activate bot prevention also on contact form

[DavidIQ]

If you search you'll find this has been discussed a few times already. The tl;dr is that, basically, the main reason for not having a CAPTCHA on this form is for the cases where the CAPTCHA itself is broken or if users are unable to solve it for whatever reason. This would drive away new users to your forum. An extension or two are already available to provide anti-spam functionality for this form, which I see a link to BOTH has been provided to you, so just use one of those.

[peopleinside]

Hi David, thank you for your reply.
I do a search on phpbb support forum maybe miss to do directly here, sorry about that.

Use extensions is not the solution for me because one extension are old and another one show to every one my email address.
Extension with time can be abandoned so the issue to have a not working extension that do not allow the use of contact form is less better than let an admin choose if have captcha protection also on the contact form. I am not telling to force this, just give the possibility to the admin to have this.

I love phpbb but seems choices are not leaved to admin and users. I suggested here just to add an optional way to activate captcha on the contact form without an extension replace the contact form or convert the link to a malito link that show my email address is not so good.

I am new on this Area 51 forum, i registered an account and just posted a post. A message has informed me I will be notified by email when my post is approved, this doesn't happen because phpbb do not let user choose, on the registration form, which email notification receive.

This is another issue about phpbb. Now just revisited the forum and found two replies that i completely missed. Why I told this? Because is another case where decisions are not left to the user. I think will be better ask the user on the registration process how he want manage notifications...

as I think administrator should have the option to activate spam protection also on the contact form.

After told that is you that decide not me so, consider this just my point of view... i never want pretend nothing... i am feel sorry to read my considerations can be considered wrong or not good.

Should I discuss on new topic with developers the fact that on registration some important email notification like post approved, reply to a topic started by the user, ecc are turned off by default and in the registration process the user has not choice to setup this?
I followed in this issue so i miss email when my post has been approved and miss also reply to my posts.

After registering in a board i never think i must activate email notification for be informed when a reply is done or my post has been approved, by default the message say i will be informed when post are approved but this never happen with the phpbb default settings.

Love phpbb, thanks for your support and time, i just want try to help you to improve and have a better software to use.

[DavidIQ]

So you also want an option for the user to NOT be notified when their post that is not visible is approved? Usually people don't post and stick around refreshing the page waiting for their post(s) to be approved (you were not actually online when I replied either) so kind of sounds like a step backwards.

In any case the argument that an extension can be abandoned is a tired reason that doesn't really hold any validity. An extension is abandoned and someone else picks it up. This has been the case time and time again. And really if there are proper events in place and an extension is created to just add the CAPTCHA into the contact admin form then there should be no work needed on the extension other than adding the CAPTCHA in, right? There would be no reason to actively maintain it since it would just pull in the CAPTCHA settings in use by the board and applying them to the form. Sounds like admins have a lot more flexibility and options now than they've ever had.

There might have been discussions about adding more options to the registration, but the form right now is pretty simple and easy, what most new users want. Long forms tend to turn users off. This is probably an area where a more complex registration form can be "easily" provided through an extension as well if it was something desired.

[peopleinside]

So you also want an option for the user to NOT be notified when their post that is not visible is approved? Usually people don't post and stick around refreshing the page waiting for their post(s) to be approved (you were not actually online when I replied either) so kind of sounds like a step backwards.

No, i mean ... as a new user i registered to your forum. Your board phpbb never asked me with mail i want receive so i registered and after i started to post topics.

As for default and as i am a new user the post goes into queue for moderation, this is good. A message inform the user a notification will be sent by email when post is approved (this is good) but this is not done if you have not forced in phpbb settings to receive email notifications for approved post (bad).

By default new user are not informed when a reply has been posted (bad) or a post has been approved (bad). The bad think about phpbb on my point of view is that do not let the user decide this on the registration process with notification should be sent and important notification are turned off by default (bad).

I think this notification settings should be turned on by default and user should be able to decide, on the registration process, what notification receive or not.

I am sorry to read that will be not possible in phpbb activate captcha protection also for contact form without an extension, I suppose i need ask for an extension for add ReCaptcha. I will do but i think this is bad, i try to use less extensions possible.

[DavidIQ]

You should be looking at extensions for adding features though, instead of expecting them to be added to the core. If we added everyone's desired feature to the core then phpBB would be a (bigger?) bloated mess so we've been making the core product as extensible as possible so that the sky's the limit. We validate all extensions that are released so those should be the safest to use. Even if released extensions are abandoned most of the time they're usable as is, barring any breaking changes experienced in the core.

I'm thinking we did add some extra events for the Contact Us form and maybe this was either considered or used by RMcGirr83 in his extension.

Comments?

All that being said, it could be that another developer has another opinion and they go and add this in but, to date, that has not been the case.