As email spam becomes an increasing problem, the best way to reduce spam is to never receive any in the first place. This is obviously much easier said than done, but the #1 cause of receive spam is to post an email address on a publicly-accessible website. Since most people and businesses who have websites want to be readily available by email, it's tempting to post the email address anyway and ignore the spam, but there's a much better way - use an email form to hide the address.

A spam-resistant email form was one of the very first projects created by Blackwolf Design, and we consistantly look for ways to improve upon that design. Visitors to the website receive a form where they can type their message and send it, with no possible way to view the site owner's email address unless a reply is sent to the email generated by the form. And, the subject field can easily be either a text box, a selectable menu, or both, allowing the script to apply organizational headers when the message is sent, or redirect the message to a different address based on subject (sales inquiries vs. support requests, for example).

The email form uses Javascript to provide on-the-fly form validation, so that users are less likely to enter invalid information when they submit the form. If a user has javascript disabled, the form is still fully-functional, providing easy compatibility with older computers, paranoid users, and low-end mobile browsers.

On sites using our modular framework, this email form is well-integrated into the user system, allowing logged-in users to bypass any spam/security checks, as well as auto-filling their information (name and email address) in the form. And, if desired by the site owner, the form can be adapted to send email to other users, allowing members to easily contact each other without exposing email addresses to anyone other than site administrators.

• Blackwolf Design
• 3D Shadowcasters

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