
Ask HN: How to create a single email field like on basecamp.com - zaphodq
I tried to implement a single email field on my saas website for free trial signups. But I got bombarded by spam.
Using google invisible recaptcha make the user experience very bad. Is there are any other work around?
Given the spam rate I decided to remove it for now.
But I am curios about how basecamp is doing it. I have seen it on other websites as well but some of them do no post the data anywhere. They just capture the email and auto fill it in the final form. But basecamp is using the email to create a trial account right away.
Any help?
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newsbinator
Have you tried using Cloudflare?

[https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/200170066-W...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/200170066-Will-activating-Cloudflare-stop-all-spammers-or-
attackers-)

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zaphodq
Cloudflare will provide some protection. But is there anything specific to
this problem? Captcha is one solution but how are websites like basecamp and
intercomm are doing it?

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verdverm
Did you send a confirmation link before granting access. Using an email is one
way to do passwordless login, by sending them a link to login.

Maybe consider OAuth?

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zaphodq
If I send email to spam bots won’t that decrease my domain score?

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gshdg
Use a honeypot field.

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zaphodq
Didn’t work. I added several variations of hidden fields like hidden email
field, hidden url field, hidden name. But nothing worked.

