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A while back I installed JetPack on one of my blogs. There’s a lot of handy tools from the developers of WordPress in JetPack. You have access to them by default when you’re hosted but not when you host your own WordPress-powered site. One of those tools is a contact form, which you can enable without using an additional form plug-in. This is handy. I’ve been using Contact Form 7 for some time on many sites, but an older contact form plugin was the vulnerability that caused Lyrical Musings to be hacked a few months ago.

Jetpack Contact Forms

To enable forms:

1. Click on the JetPck menu.
2. Search for “Contact Form.”
3. Click “Activate.”

Once forms are enabled, you’ll see a button on every post and page editor to add a form. You can easily create a form for any page with the visual editor. The default options are name, website and message. Jetpack allows you to add additional text, textarea, checkbox and radio fields, among others, with the option to set each and every form field as required. By default, the form is sent to the author of the page. However, you can specify another email address in “Notifications.” Whenever someone sends a message through the form that isn’t marked as spam, you receive an email.

Stop Spam with Jetpack’s Contact Form

By default, Jetpack forms do not have a CAPTCHA or anti-spam technology. However, you can easily emulate an anti-spam plugin that requires visitors to check a box indicating they’re human. Simply

1. Click “Add a field”
2. Type text such as “Click if you’re human” into the  “Label” field.
3. Select “Checkbox.”
4. Check “Required.”
5. Click “Save the field.”

Spam bots won’t even be able to submit the form, which will clear up some space in your Feedback panel and your database. Good news because you can only view 20 entries in the Spam folder at a time. Deleting is tedious.

Manage Jetpack Feedback Form Submissions

Your navigation will also have a new “Feedback” menu. When you click this, you’ll see all the form submissions stored in three categories:  messages, spam and trash. Successfully-completed messages appear in the first. Any messages that you move from the “Messages” or “Spam” folders move to the trash. Any message that Jetpack isn’t sure is real winds up in the spam folder. Many of mine were in Russian or simply blank. However, a few legitimate messages did make it through. I was able to mark them as not spam, at which point I received an email like they were new.

While you can empty the trash in one fell swoop, you can’t do the same with spam. Unfortunately, dealing with spam is tiresome if you just realized that Jetpack has taken over  your forms because it uses the same shortcode as Contact Form 7. It took few a few minutes to delete the 500+ spam messages and find the handful of legitimate messages. However, it’s all cleaned up, now.

I hope this helps you better use contact forms with Jetpack!

Before I empty my spam on WordPress, I thought I’d highlight some of the more entertaining entries.

The author of 7and1.net has written an excellent article. You have made your point and there is not much to argue about. It is like the following universal truth that you can not argue with: All light beers are awful Thanks for the info.

I wasn’t arguing anything but thanks! Also, beer in general is awful. ;)

Since making his octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 14, the San Diego-based fighter has alternated between wins and losses in four octagon appearances.

Octagon, yea!

I linke this post!!!!

I linke you, too?!?!

Holy smokes, good read, Man. I just happened to be on your site after a recommendation from Adam . Looks like I was here just in time to grab hold of this great post. That?s a lot of powerful stuff you?re sharing here.

I?ve read $47

Must be powerful if Adam is spreading the word. Maybe Eve isn’t quite so fond of my blog? Also, reading money sounds like a hobby I could really enjoy!

Hi, i’m still looking for Same Day Flower Delivery. Could anybody help me?

LOL, no. Last time I got flowers.. Well, it didn’t work out so well.

piano chords…

Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything, it would be much appreciated. Great website HOT Pianoforte Links http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!…

Pianos really turn me on, too!

Despite my isolation from friends and family, I am inundated with requests and queries and messages. My inbox, answering machine and mailbox never stay empty. If anything, I have developed a very clear stance on spam: I hate it.

I have resorted to letting the machine pick up every call and I’m sure Ryan doesn’t appreciate it but I am sick of taking calls that want something (I tell you, you donate once and they won’t leave you alone. They’re like stray cats!) or for people who don’t live here, never have and no, I don’t know them, thank you very much. I am not Nadia, Melissa or Erica and the Ryan you want is not my husband so stop calling! These people must be going through the phone book and calling everyone with the same last name as we have which is ridiculous. I mean, our last name is in the top 20 in the entire country so that tactic is absurd to begin with. For reference, there are over 10 pages of Martinezes in the phone book.

Car insurance companies down here are also really good at making their ads seem like real mail. They’re vague enough that you have to open them, just in case it’s something you’ll regret tossing. I get those kind of letters at least once a week. Think of the trees, people!

In fact the calls and mail make me happy Thunderbird does so well with fielding spam and that my computer doesn’t “ring” every time I get a knew message. I’d have to kill myself then. I already hate the sound of our phone which also has an insanely loud ringer even on low. I’d hate to hate my computer.

In summary: gtfo spammers.

Cut it the fuck out. Or I’ll cut you.

Sincerely,

Me