Allow Event Submissions from Website Visitors

If you run a website for a community of people who would like to be able to post events occasionally — but not often enough that you need to provide them with an author or contributor password — you can allow them to submit events for review by your website’s team of editors.

An example is shown below. This form can be added to any post or page using the RSVPMaker Event Submission editor block or the [rsvpmaker_submission] shortcode. For security reasons, event descriptions are limited to bold, italic, and link formatting. Any other HTML or script code is filtered out.

When a website visitor completes the form, an email notification is sent to the list of people you specify (either in your default settings or the block settings). RSVPMaker event posts are saved as drafts but not published until a website editor approves them.

Optionally, you can prompt users to include a timezone in addition to date and time. This is important for online events and events across many geographies, but not necessary for a website advertising local community events.

You can try the user experience here.

Event Title:

to

Choose a city in the same timezone as you.
If you want your contact information to be published as part of the event listing, also include it in the description below.

Event Details

Here is what the block looks like in the editor.

RSVPMaker Event Submission editor block

My experience from running community websites is that I’d rather give people a password if they are posting events regularly, partly because I want them to be able to make updates when event details change.

On the other hand, plenty of people who might have something good to share are reluctant to accept the burden of having to remember another password — and I can’t blame them. This is a way of encouraging more participation and building a more complete calendar for whatever community you serve.

Update: Release 7.7.5 adds support for Google reCAPTCHA to combat form spam. The reCAPTCHA credentials must be entered on the RSVPMaker Settings screen.

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