Free "petition"-type web software?
October 19, 2014 12:40 AM   Subscribe

I would like to create a web page where people can sign a sort of petition. It needs to be on my own web host, so third-party websites are not an option.

A person should be able to fill in a number of fields (customizable by me), some of which will be required, and then an email is sent to them to confirm their signing by clicking a link in the email. The names of the people who signed should be accessible so that I can list them somewhere.

I would also like a "private" option so that instead of listing a name, if the user likes I can list some other less-identifying identification (eg, town).

It would be great if it were free and if the software worked with a common CMS, such as WordPress of Joomla. (I can program some PHP, so if it needs a little customization, I can do that, but I'd rather not, of course). Has anyone got experience with such software?
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike to Computers & Internet (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe look at these three WP plugins?
YAWPPP
SpeakUp!
ecampaign
posted by houseofdanie at 1:34 AM on October 19, 2014


Response by poster: SpeakUp! is for email campaigns, and ecampaign hasn't been updated in years. I had seen those and rejected them. YAWPPP is a possibility, no one has rated it and it doesn't list compatibility with the latest version of WordPress. I suppose I can give it a try, if there's nothing more trustworthy available.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 5:40 AM on October 19, 2014


Response by poster: I can confirm that YAWPP does not work properly.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 6:00 AM on October 19, 2014


Check out NationBuilder and see if it fits your needs.
posted by lunasol at 6:00 AM on October 19, 2014


Response by poster: NationBuilder is a third party host, and also is quite expensive.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 6:09 AM on October 19, 2014


If you are comfortable with Drupal this is the software they use the Whitehouse site.

Otherwise, Github had several hundred results for "petition," - something there ought to work for you.
posted by COD at 6:32 AM on October 19, 2014


Sorry, NationBuilder used to have a free module. CiviCRM is free and open-source, not sure how the hosting works.

If you just want to collect the petitions to deliver later (not deliver them immediately through a web form) then why not just set up a form/survey?
posted by lunasol at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2014


Response by poster: If you just want to collect the petitions to deliver later (not deliver them immediately through a web form) then why not just set up a form/survey?

What I'm using it for is not quite a petition; it is more a "manifesto". The signatures need to be displayed automatically, but they also need to be verified.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2014


Response by poster: For the curious, none of the above solutions obviously solved my problem, so I ended up writing my own WordPress plugin.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 12:57 PM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: kallekillen, I got your message about this but your mefimail is disabled so I can't respond to you. Please enable your mefimail and send me another message.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 1:45 AM on April 13, 2015


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