[thelist] international friendly form

[John Handelaar]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Herzog, Ari
> Sent: 07 February 2001 14:15
> To: 'thelist at lists.evolt.org'
> Subject: RE: [thelist] international friendly form
> My own additional tuppenyworth would suggest that 
> the forms are bad enough - but if you start putting 
> near-Fascist JS traps all over it [You VILL FILL OUT 
> ZIS FORM CORRECTLY] then I'm outta there faster than 
> you can say 'Barrier to entry'.
> 
> ------Response-------
> Is JS Validation really all that bad?
> I also have some ColdFusion pre-processing/post-submission
> code as well, such as stripping spaces and dashes, etc
> from phone and fax numbers. But to verify the email address
> has an @ and at least one dot, or the country is filled in
> if required, how can that be fascist?

Q: Why do people fill out forms with dots, fake addresses
   and 90210 for the zip code?

A: Because they don't *want* you to have all their
   details.

'Fascist' is too strong a word, for sure (and it's nice
to see that an old Usenet rule doesn't apply here, I
guess...).  My point is this - if you're getting crap
in the forms, the form's either too long or it shouldn't
be there at all.

Basically, it boils down to whether a small amount of
user data is more important to you than a high number
of visitors.  If so, then go right ahead.  If not,
it's time to rethink.

<tip type="net marketing 101">
If you *really* want to get data out of your users,
then get a little piece at a time.  First time, ask
for a name and valid email address.  Next time,
ask them to give you a postcode if they want to 
enter the competition.  Time after that, you've filled
in a swathe of address data already from the data
you already have, and all you need is their street 
address.

And so on, all the way up to offering a free coupon
or other gift if they "phone this 800 number and enter
the (unique) 5-digit code in this email!" - and
caller ID gets the phone number :-)

Actually, that might be slight overkill...

And of course you're stuffed if you don't got a 
database-driven site.
</tip>

My longest post of the year so far, I believe

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John Handelaar

T +44 20 7209 4117       M +44 7930 681789
F +44 870 169 7657   E john at userfrenzy.com
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