zlacker

Never let a good crisis go to waste: I'm launching https://20-things.com/ :) Could use a good load test ;)

>>dt3ft+(OP)
HN always likes new communities. But don't do this:

New account registrations are currently either closed or very limited

If you do that, the psychology goes like this: "I wonder what this is?" (click) "Ooh, a new social community! I like those!" (reads further) "What do you mean, new accounts are closed or very limited? What if I want to join? Why are you gatekeeping me? Damn you!"... except with words stronger than 'damn'.

Once you're ready to let anyone sign up, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll help you out.

>>dt3ft+(OP)
How's it going back there?

>>dt3ft+(OP)
Error 1020 Ray ID: 57e1700a4e91b87b • 2020-04-03 08:32:11 UTC

Access denied

What happened?

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

Looks like you got what you wanted...

>>dang+4
Thank you, the registrations are now open but each signup incurs a cost (for the SMS) and the budget is currently limited hence the notice. I'll get in touch asap.

>>dt3ft+h1
Sending even tens of thousands of SMS is very cheap, just how limited is that budget? :)

>>_-____+u1
A few hundred people with US numbers should be able to sign up, but sending SMS overseas is much more expensive. For example, sending to Switzerland: $0.069 per SMS.

>>phoe-k+61
Sorry about that, this was just CF Geo firewall kicking in. I disabled it as it makes no sense to use it in this day and age.

>>dt3ft+04
Error 522 Ray ID: 57e1b052bb7bf2c8 • 2020-04-03 09:16:36 UTC

Connection timed out

:)

>>dt3ft+J1
That's insane, but in line with what other (local) sms gateways charge here.

But do you really need my phone number?

>>phoe-k+C4
Works on my machine :D Did you try restarting your computer? Joking aside, all requests are served in milliseconds, there are no queues.

>>dt3ft+65
I am not kidding. The website is unreachable for me from Poland.

https://i.imgur.com/aQddPrf.png

>>dt3ft+(OP)
Just got Cloudflare Error 522, Our work is done here HN, next one please.

>>dt3ft+(OP)
20-Things feedback (unsolicited ;-)

- no probs registering from the UK

- the site refers to a "20-Things Mascot", but I see none

- when logged in, my user name isn't displayed to remind me of who I am; sad to say this is useful for me nowadays

- in the "about" section, it says, "...specifically designed with our users limited free time in mind." I'd have preferred "... users' limited free time ...".

- er, that's it, with thanks and encouragement :-)

>>jmiser+N4
I have experience with building a very large community where registration was based on e-mail alone. Racism & general hate don't even begin to describe the things that came along with anonymity and disposable e-mail...

>>phoe-k+s5
Odd. The GEO FW rule was disabled, but I don't know how long it may take for CF to react. Are you able to connect through a proxy/vpn from another country? I'm fairly sure you've lost interest at this point, but if you got time to kill, I'd love to "debug" this and see what's up.

>>dt3ft+m6
https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/20-things.com

20-things.com Status - Is 20-things.com down right now?

It's not just you! 20-things.com is down.

>>samizd+U5
Thank you, much appreciated! There is a mascot, but I did not use it anywhere on the site just yet, I will modify the wording for now. The rest makes sense as well, I will get right on it and thank you for the encouragement! :)

>>kamyar+y5
That can't be right though. The box is fairly strong :) I believe that CF may have a new IP range which accesses origins, and I white-listed their known ranges a few months ago. Perhaps this calls for an update to that whitelist.

>>phoe-k+K6
Worked for me - you can try this too, it will show screenshots too: https://geopeeker.com/

>>dt3ft+58
Strange. It only works for some parts of the world, then.

>>dt3ft+86
There are plenty of services for anonymous, disposable phone numbers.

>>_-____+8c
True, but far fewer than disposable e-mail.

>>dt3ft+Z6
> That can't be right though.

Unsolicited advice, but please don't have this mindset towards system failure. More things go wrong than you anticipate.

>>random+nd
Thank you for your advice, I appreciate it. I did examine everything that came to mind and the only thing at this point that may be happening is cloudflare -> origin connectivity for some users. I am using a keyword based monitoring since day one and so far no issues with reachability have been detected. This could be related to CF Geo firewall (disabled, but perhaps caching on CF side need to expire?). The only way I can verify CF<->Origin connectivity is by paying for CF a Pro account with Origin health check feature. If you have any ideas/suggestions how to troubleshoot this, I would be happy to hear them. Thanks!

>>dt3ft+m6
If you're really curious, maybe ask in #cloudflare on freenode. IRC feels more relaxed than email, but in turn I've no idea how long you'd be waiting for a reply. The worst outcome is discovering the issue is due to a site misconfiguration or glitch, but considering that the screenshot is showing "Cloudflare: working" it just might be an issue on CF's end.

The alternate possibility is that the "cloudflare" keyword watcher I'm pretty sure CF runs might cause this whole issue to mysteriously go away :)

(jgrahamc, I'm curious: are you reading this? :D)

>>dt3ft+86
Why not put a soft limit on the amount of signups-through-mail a day?

After xyz signups through it, make the rest of the day's accounts require manual approval for the first few posts.

You can also mitigate the disposable mail problem pretty easily by requiring whitelisting for any domain that's got more than a few accounts tied to it.

That comes out way cheaper for you, and might improve the quality of conversation (because there are valid reasons for anonymity and pseudonymity).

EDIT:

Also, bug report: the category row at the top doesn't overflow very well; on smaller window-sizes, there are many categories out of view. Maybe make the hamburger menu come up on more than just mobile screen factors?