Rename fields on guest comment form to reduce chances of browser autofilling non-fannish names
Description
Ever since we stopped preloading guest comment forms with name/email people have used before (), the Policy and Abuse committee has received an increased number of reports from people who left guest comments but accidentally let their browser autofill their real names.
There are no reliable ways to disable this browser behavior, but we've found that changing the field names can help.
From :
I logged out in Chrome where I’m logged in as an account called Ariana, and indeed, it offered to fill in my real name [...]. If I change the label in dev tools to "Guest name:", my real name stops coming up and I get the suggestion Commenter instead.
We will rename the fields of the guest comment form from "Name" and "Email" to "Guest name" and "Guest email".
How to test:
Open a guest comment form on production in Chrome and see how form autofill works. Try that on staging and see if the autofilled values are different.
Make sure the fields have new names, and label association works (clicking on the label puts the focus/cursor on the field next to it).
Make sure you can still post guest comments.
Activity
Firefox
On beta
On testing
I tried Chrome like the instructions say and beta has no suggestions for me.
With Chrome, I believe the problem appears (pre-change) if the user has some information saved in the address autofill at chrome://settings/addresses.
Used the link helpfully provided by to save a name and an email address under my “Addresses”, thank you!
Production
Went to a work on production to leave a guest comment. Clicked into the “Name:” field and a little drop-down appeared suggesting my saved name & email combination. I did actually have to select it, but I guess it can happen accidentally? Once selected, it autofilled both the “Name:” and the “Email:” field.
Saved another name + email address combination in the settings.
Opened a different work on production. It doesn’t automatically pre-fill anything upon loading the page, but gives me the dropdown options when I click into the field.
Staging
Went to a news post on staging. When I click into the “Guest name:” field, nothing happens. However, clicking into “Guest email:” does give me the two email addresses as options. Since those are not visible, this is an improvement? I don’t get a suggestion like “Commenter” or something from Chrome.
Label Association
Clicking on the label puts the focus on the text field on both staging and production.
Since those are not visible, this is an improvement? I don’t get a suggestion like “Commenter” or something from Chrome.
I think it's fine. We stop the name suggestions which is crucial.
