Why web forms are bad (compared to email)

Don't you just hate it when you click on the "email" link on someone's website and it takes you to a tiny web-form which only fits about 6 words per line, cramped into a small box? After struggling to write your message you invariably click "submit" and it says Error.. you click the "back" button optimistically and of cause the whole message is gone. Webmasters got overexcited and tried to run internet messaging through a web page, when really it should be left as standard email or IM.

Short run down of why web-forms are bad for messages:

• Tiny form boxes, pledgebank is a great example, limited to 7 words per line.
• Often arbitrary restrictions on the text that can be written. Lincolnshire NHS trust have a secret blocked character list including ",', and ; then they limit to 255 characters.
• Often fails to "Submit" and when you click back of cause it has lost all your text.
• Leaves me with no record in my Sent folder of what I've written.
• No way to forward the message I have sent to a friend, or another department at the organisation.
  

All these problems make it very difficult to send a website a message telling them one of their pages has broken links or typos etc. Web-forms can always be a secondary contact option, but email should always be the first option as it is the best. See Email 101 for tips on writing to the point.