chrismytton
commented
5 years ago Here's a non-exhaustive list of potential requirements for this kind of form:
- Some design time to create the contact form and integrate it into the current design
- A service that processes form submissions, validates the inputs, then sends the email on to the representative. This could be something we build ourselves or a third-party service. We need to be careful we don't create an open-relay which allows anyone to email anyone, it needs to be locked down to the list of representatives.
- Validation for the form, to ensure the user fills out the required fields and enters a valid email address for the replies to go to etc
- Some way to prevent spam submissions. We don't want spammers emailing representatives about viagra or whatever. This might be a CAPTCHA or something similar.
- Some way to prevent abusive submissions. We don't want to enable harassment.
- Possibly some way to validate the user's email address where replies will go before we send the message onto the representative. This could help prevent spam and abuse. Without this people can just enter any email address they like.
- Potentially some way to disable sending messages to certain representatives, in case they ask us to turn it off for their profile.
- An email address to send the resulting messages from. The domain for this address will probably need to have some extra DNS records configured to try and avoid ending up in the spam folder of the representatives.
- A "Thank-you" page to show the user after they've submitted the form, possibly explaining that they now need to go to their email and validate their email address before the message is sent.
- Some kind of holding pen for messages that have been written but are waiting for the user to confirm their email address before we send them.
We can't use Formspree, because that requires the recipient to confirm their email before we can start sending emails to them, and we can't do that for every current and future representative on the site.
If we use a third-party solution then time will need to be spent integrating with that. If we build it ourselves then time will need to be spent planning, building and deploying the service, as well as the ongoing maintenance cost of supporting such a service (services that deal with email are especially hard because you have to make sure you don't get blacklisted for spamming etc).
Conclusion
I think even if we ignore some of the above requirements and just produce a very barebones version it's still going to take at least 15 - 20 days, possibly more. That's a very rough finger-in-the-air estimate though. And that only accounts for the initial build. As I've mentioned there would also be an ongoing maintenance cost to running this kind of service.
We have closed #187 but EiE would like to know how long it would take to create a contact form on representatives profiels. Once they know this they could decide whether they would like to use their time on this feature, as they feel it is an important feature of the site.
Please let me know, once this estimation has been made as I need to liaise with EiE :)