So now my "mutual referrer" form is safe 🎉

lightninglessons.com/classes/writ...

Bots thwarted. Only after they sent about 120 emails in my name 🤦‍♀️

I used `position: absolute; left: -9999px; opacity: 0;`. I didn't use `display: none` in case a bot was set up to detect this. I called this input field "phone" just to keep it believable.

On my server I said "if we get a submission to the phone field, throw it away"

I finally decided to add a "honeypot".

This is an input field in the form that you hide, and expect that no human user would fill in. A bot automatically fills this in and then you can safely throw away that submission.

I tried deprecating HTTP/0.9 and HTTP/1.0, the idea being maybe an old or poorly written bot is using these older protocols.

this didn't work

I tried appending a # hash to the form's action URL, the idea being that if the bot was old or poorly written it would submit the wrong URL (and a browser just throws this away)

this didn't work

What do to? Akismet seems cool but was there a simpler solution?

Went through this site: www.ctrl.blog/entry/detect...

No, you did not go viral, you got bots 😅.

A few days later I got an email from Resend (who I'm using to send emails) that I was almost hitting the max allowed emails in a day. Strange...that's gotta be a lot of users. Did I go viral 🤩

The features works like this: submit your name and email, and your friend's name and email. That hits my backend, creates one promo code for each user, and sends each user an email with their promo code.

I built a nice little referral form on my website for a course I'm running: refer a friend and you both get 15% off.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

and if it's a type error from older types, Restart TypeScript Server could be needed

Thanks @lilgreybirb.bsky.social!

signups: lightninglessons.com/classes/writ...

you can check it out at: lightninglessons.com/classes/writ...

This class is for all levels, beginners to advanced. It's best if you know how to play a few chords on your instrument.

We're running it 12-1pm PT on Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 13, and Nov. 20, but also sending out recordings after each class for you to work through at your own pace.

In this class, you'll learn the fundamentals of music theory that will empower you distill techniques from your favorite artists into concepts that you can use in your own songs.

Think: intervals, diatonic chords, functional notation, cadences, secondary dominants, borrowed chords, and more.

"let's get weird" - i'm listening lol...