# Anonymous form that creates a topic
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [April 23, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718 "2019-04-23T13:55:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dsims](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dsims)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718/1 "2019-04-23T13:55:02Z")
I want visitors to be able post a simple note or question without having to register, kind of like an integrated “Contact Us” form or “Guestbook”. So I was considering using the API to set up a simple form that creates topics as a shared “anon” user. I was also thinking I could make a plugin that stores a different name per post that is displayed instead of the shared username.
Any technical reason this wouldn’t work?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718/2 "2019-04-23T15:41:45Z")
You can set up a category that allows creating topics via email and then have some “contact us” forum that emails to that (preferably secret) address.
> [@Configuring incoming email to create new topics or group messages](https://meta.discourse.org/t/start-a-new-topic-via-email-e-mail/62977):
>
> bookmark This guide explains how to set up incoming emails to create new topics or group messages in Discourse, including configuration of site settings and category or group-specific settings. person_raising_hand Required user level: Administrator This guide covers: Enabling and configuring incoming emails Choosing between category and group for incoming emails Setting up incoming emails for a group Setting up incoming emails for a category Deciding how forwarded emails are handled …
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### Author:  [@dsims](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dsims)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718/3 "2019-04-23T17:49:50Z")
I suppose I could fake a POST to the same endpoint which I believe would create a “staged” user. There needs to be a way to avoid sending any emails to that staged user though.
> [@Creating a staged user with an API call](https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-a-staged-user-with-an-api-call/84667/4):
>
> You might just have to generate an email and send that to your Discourse instance. EDIT: Actually there is an /admin/email/handle\_mail POST route that you can send an API request to.
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### Author:  [@dsims](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dsims)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718/4 "2019-04-23T17:54:38Z")
Another option might be to create a new user and topic via the API, then delete that user. According to this it’s possible to delete a user and retain the post, but I can’t find any details about how that works or where it happens in the code.
> [@Allow removing account info without content deletion](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-removing-account-info-without-content-deletion/25913/17):
>
> Feature is complete and works well, thanks @neil This topic is now closed. New replies are no longer allowed.
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### Author:  [@thaidb](https://meta.discourse.org/u/thaidb)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2019, 11:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-form-that-creates-a-topic/115718/5 "2019-09-24T11:06:09Z")
I wanna create contact form embed code other website, after user complete form and auto post a topic Discourse or send to Message admin or moderator?