[Ubuntu-be] support.points.map status & question

[Pierre Buyle]

Hoi,

I'm done with user registration (and form validation) for the
support.points.map. After trying to use CodeIgniter's validation lib.
I decided to drop it (it doesn't supporter data object validation in
model but only $_POST validation in controller). I'm currently using
ad-hoc validation code, when finished with this "second release", I
will try to cook my own "validation lib" suited with the needs of our
application.

I'm now moving to supporters contacts (forms) and I've a question
concerning the behavior of the application for this. At the moment,
the application directly send a mail to the supporter without
acknowledgement to the requester and without validation of his/her
email address. This is not very nice as I see two problems with this
behavior. The requester may have made mistake in his email and the
application (and the supporter) have no way to tell him/her. A "evil"
requester could abuse the contact form to spam or flood supporters.

I see two solutions to this problem but I don't know wich is better
(for all point view).
In the first solution the request (for contact) can be stored in the
database. An email is send to the requester with a validation link he
has to visit to validate his request and effectively send an email to
the supporter. In the second solution, the application does not send a
mail to the supporter but instead to the requester. This mail informs
him/her about his/her request and that he/she should reply to this
message to effectively contact to supporter (the supporter's email
will be in the "reply-to" field of the mail).

What do you think is the best to do ?

In the meantime, if you have some XHTML + CSS + Javascript
(XmtHttpRequest/AJAX) (+ PHP but only a few) skills and if your are
interested to create a kick ass AJAXed supporters list with
geolocalisation or a simple XHTML+CSS supporter list, feel free to
volonteer.

-- 
mongolito404, king of the mongolian people