Re: Registration webforms

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From: Ann Barcomb
Subject: Re: Registration webforms
Date: 07:26 on 29 Apr 2004
I'm not too fond of most webforms either, although I've made plenty of them.
Most of the time it is the specifications which cause the resulting form to
suck.  I guess YAPC NA doesn't have that excuse, however.

Recently I was reading a company's site and I wanted to send them a mail
to comment on one of their products.  There was no email address, just a
webform.  One of the questions that required an answer was my birthday.
This had nothing whatsoever to do with my comment.

I complained about this in my post (after filling in a birthday of 1-1-01)
and to their credit they answered it, citing some odd American law that
seemed to be trying to protect children from giving their opinions (I was
trying to comment on _ice_cream_).  I guess "you must be 18 to click
this button" is no longer a legal defense; people discovered children could
click those buttons, but of course they can't fill in fake years of birth.

So although I'd like to complain about this idiotic form (which didn't
even block my comment even though as far as it can see I'm only 3 years
old), it seems it is the rabid "protect our children" lobby that is really
to blame.

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