Spammy RSVPs?
November 9, 2012 8:39 AM Subscribe
Using a Google Form for wedding RSVPs - are we going to get spammy submissions?
We're using a Google Form for our wedding RSVPs. And thanks to a previous question, I'm making it dead simple - 1 page with name, yes/no, guest name if you're bringing one. (Please no responses about whether an online form is good etiquette, or suggestions about how to design the form - those decisions have been made. Comments about how to design the form to prevent spam are welcome if that's possible.)
My one concern is spam. The form will be accessible from our publicly-available wedding website (bridenamegroomname.ourwedding.com). Are we likely to end up getting spammed? i.e., are we likely to have troublemakers or some kind of bots submitting bogus entries? If yes, how many - a couple, or hundreds? Is that a problem that's common with publicly-available Google Forms?
We don't want to password-protect the Form because a) I don't know how to do that b) I don't want to deal with inevitable confusing and lost passwords c) I'm totally on-board with URLs on an invitation, but I have an irrational aversion to putting a password on the invitation. We'd have to find another RSVP site instead, which is not ideal (though if you think spam is an inevitable problem, suggestions for which site to use are welcome). And restricting it to certain people/accounts is not really an option, because not everyone has a Google account and we're not asking our aunts to create Google accounts just to fill in this form.
So given that we won't be password-protecting the form, are we running a significant risk for spammy responses?
We're using a Google Form for our wedding RSVPs. And thanks to a previous question, I'm making it dead simple - 1 page with name, yes/no, guest name if you're bringing one. (Please no responses about whether an online form is good etiquette, or suggestions about how to design the form - those decisions have been made. Comments about how to design the form to prevent spam are welcome if that's possible.)
My one concern is spam. The form will be accessible from our publicly-available wedding website (bridenamegroomname.ourwedding.com). Are we likely to end up getting spammed? i.e., are we likely to have troublemakers or some kind of bots submitting bogus entries? If yes, how many - a couple, or hundreds? Is that a problem that's common with publicly-available Google Forms?
We don't want to password-protect the Form because a) I don't know how to do that b) I don't want to deal with inevitable confusing and lost passwords c) I'm totally on-board with URLs on an invitation, but I have an irrational aversion to putting a password on the invitation. We'd have to find another RSVP site instead, which is not ideal (though if you think spam is an inevitable problem, suggestions for which site to use are welcome). And restricting it to certain people/accounts is not really an option, because not everyone has a Google account and we're not asking our aunts to create Google accounts just to fill in this form.
So given that we won't be password-protecting the form, are we running a significant risk for spammy responses?
Have you considered a captcha for response submission?
Difficulty: lots of people are very very confused by captchas. Maybe you can make a clever one, like a game: "Enter IRSVP here:"
I wish you joy in your upcoming life.
posted by Infinity_8 at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2012
Difficulty: lots of people are very very confused by captchas. Maybe you can make a clever one, like a game: "Enter IRSVP here:"
I wish you joy in your upcoming life.
posted by Infinity_8 at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2012
We used a google form for our save the date--without a password--and did not get any spam.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:56 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:56 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
You're not going to get any spam. Google Form pages are searchable.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
We didn't get any spam on our google form RSVP page
posted by rockindata at 9:41 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 9:41 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
Oh -- sorry -- looks like you can't use CAPTCHA in Google Forms.
posted by Infinity_8 at 10:02 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Infinity_8 at 10:02 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
I have been using google forms for collecting author affiliaitions for years. These go out to hundreds of people and I have never once gotten one spam entry.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
I used a google form for my wedding RSVPs.
I did a really simple homemade captcha where the question was something like "What's 7+1?" with a validation on that field. So a human will know to enter "8" and proceed but a bot will not be able to proceed. I didn't get any spam and nobody found it confusing.
I also used that form to collect other useful information I wanted to gather like favorite pizza toppings and when are you going to be leaving and arriving.
posted by bleep at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
I did a really simple homemade captcha where the question was something like "What's 7+1?" with a validation on that field. So a human will know to enter "8" and proceed but a bot will not be able to proceed. I didn't get any spam and nobody found it confusing.
I also used that form to collect other useful information I wanted to gather like favorite pizza toppings and when are you going to be leaving and arriving.
posted by bleep at 10:23 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
I put our Google reply-to form up in January for our April wedding with no password or any other form of protection, linked from our wedding website, and to this day it hasn't received any spam--I just checked.
I should probably get around to taking it down!
posted by telophase at 2:10 PM on November 9, 2012
I should probably get around to taking it down!
posted by telophase at 2:10 PM on November 9, 2012
I use google forms daily for hundreds of entries, and I've never had spam, even though they are publicly searchable and posted on my websites.
If you're really convinced it will be a problem, you can have multiple pages before the submission button. Then at least there's an extra click.
posted by guster4lovers at 4:27 PM on November 9, 2012
If you're really convinced it will be a problem, you can have multiple pages before the submission button. Then at least there's an extra click.
posted by guster4lovers at 4:27 PM on November 9, 2012
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posted by mercredi at 8:41 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]