Habrahabr, IE8, invites or as it was

Under the cut is a short chronology of the events of black Saturday of July habré with my comments and thoughts as partly the culprit of all this mess. It was written for a personal blog, so explanations can not read — you all know. If there are adjustments from the resource administration, you will be happy to make them. Note that everything said is a personal opinion and does not claim to absolute objectivity.

So, what is happened in the night from Friday to Saturday on the most popular IT-resource — Habrahabr?! So excited Hebraist and lightly stirred it-part of the Runet? Why were poured tons of mud, and decent-looking people revealed their true nature? And the following happened. All known software giant decided to conduct a PR campaign to promote its new browser, Internet Explorer 8. The purpose of the good to some extent — let the people finally get off morally and technically outdated IE6/7. That's just the audience was not entirely appropriate — Hebraist. Why not quite right? The thing is that on habré communicate all the same people who are well versed in the IT field, and it is suspected that among them the percentage of IE users (as such) is not very large, if not to take into account work tasks. And even this percentage is probably self-updated to the latest version of the browser. It's all about the registered users. With simple readers of the situation, however, is exactly the same — random people on the online do not go, and some Mache from Uryupinsk, not getting out of Facebook, it do not care. It is logical that the reaction to the is IE8 were at best indifferent, at worst strongly negative. Otradovice was really little, I think. This was the first mistake.

The second mistake was the hosting lottery: specialrole have downloaded the IE8 had a chance to win an invite to the resource! Here it is necessary to add a bit of explanation. Since inception in 2006 to mid-2008, the registration was completely free. After — only by invite. According to official document: "Thus the growth of registered users has passed in the qualitative growth of the target audience." To register on the resource could only be possible after receiving an invitation from the proven (by the values of karma and power) user Habra. A little later there was a Sandbox in which you can publish your material and if it would be good to invite. Simply put — to get on Habr has become much more difficult! Gradually came to the point that the invites began to trade, and not at the most affordable prices. It is not surprising that by itself, the lottery has caused consternation among those who earned an invitation previously. It does not matter in what way — buying from friends or earned by their own labor. The lottery could get an invite almost effortlessly. This, incidentally, resulted in public humiliation and minusovaniya careless (or foolish) lighted the newcomers. For many of them these minus completely undeserved, but not for everyone — some people quite rightly "loaded schscham". Many feared the influx of completely inadequate nyufagov. A "filtering" these users may take up to six months. During this time they will have time to pretty to screw it up.

This situation angered me at first. As a result, in a personal blog somewhere at 1:30 there was a corresponding topic. And then, as they say, events began to develop rapidly. Google and Twitter took the most direct part in a few hours (or even tens of minutes) news about freestuff distribution of heronview spread through the popular IT resources. The topic has also been fairly quickly to acquire the comments of various nature. And it became a real PI***TS! The moral side of the question is put aside and will talk about technical.
It quickly became clear that download the special version of the browser is completely optional and you just have to pass on a special the link if you already have IE8. It broke the last barrier, because many probably stopped the need to download and (re-)install IE8. This was the third blunder. It seems to me that japanation for IE surely it would be possible to include some mechanism to uniquely identify your browser. But this was not done. Moreover, forming properly UserAgent, you can get an invite from another browser. It is also an important fact.

The fourth blunder was the most epic. In terms of the lottery it was said: "the day played out 100 invites on Habrahabr. One winning ticket!" These terms, as it became clear very soon, was not observed! Were given unlimited amount of invites and almost every attempt was winning!!! Hasn't been created any anti-cheat system. Attempt data was maintained only in cookies (which are basic way erased), although it would be possible to include identification by IP, screen resolution etc. Tools add-ons IE this can be done, I think. (In passing, I note that some complained about the blasted spaceborne, but I think it is rather the exception.) The only limit: one e-mail one invite. Guess what it led to?! To an unprecedented number of people wanting to register! Somewhere in the comments zips figure 26(0) 000 (?) queries, but the truth of the figures is in doubt. Consider that right now population Habra is approximately 50,000 people, of which only a third are active.

The system was very easy to deceive, and the morning was already filled with the appropriate scripts to automatically collect the invites. Habr slowly went downward from the load. Parallel to this is country(W) - ing things — for antichute (the topic is already deleted), the vingrad and elsewhere in the free market appeared the packs of hablainville. And according to rumors the sellers dump, was invited bids and engaged in other market speculation. Started a real extravaganza! The topic finally turned into a typical flame topic and not very. Chaotic shouting, a skirmish, adding and minusovaniya, insults and gratitude... had Revealed the true essence and all! It was totally out of control society, the crowd, the people. This is not a problem Habra! This is not a problem in the long run. Such is the nature of every human being and we should treat it with humor(?), not to join their ranks. And you need to be able to manage. To prevent such situations in principle.

Whatever it was, and the fate of all received in the lottery invites already predefined. All newcomers will be subject to strict moderation and the "extra" invitations removed. In General, there were many other amusing (to some extent) things. Found out about future special promotions, for example. And poor bot, from which rang out the invites, actually brutally zaminusovali. Why? I wanted to protest or stupidity? Because it was right to write to a support. Here, by the way, there is another interesting point. I don't know if there was a stream of letters to the administration with a warning about the current situation. But I people do not really believe it and suspect that even many longtime abrowser made a reserve a couple of invitations.

Well, okay. By Saturday evening it became very clear that the freebie has ended and today the invites will not. I can only assume that at 00:00 of the second wave, which was much stronger than the first. At the same time online tried заDDoSить. For this reason, Habr went down for 2-3 hours, even when the information about unavailability of the resource was unavailable. Then the situation returned to normal and now all is quiet.
So, what ... is the result:
the
    the
  • an invaluable experience for the repetition of such mistakes in the future
  • the
  • many new Abrosimov, the good and not very
  • the
  • in addition to the skill of the staff in building high-load services
  • more proof of his credibility (not to be confused with elitism) the

  • a new meme Iulat, similar to carounate
  • the
  • several topics related to this event: ironic, poludionny and publicly-hysterical (forgive me, author for this definition), with a total of about 1,000 feedback comments (including the starting post 500+)
  • the
  • finally, just a good shake, which is sometimes useful

PS: All of the above is solely personal opinion of the events. Sorry if someone offended your own words or (non-)actions.
P. P. S.: And Habr all the same cake =)

the

that's all discussion of this event, I suggest to stop.

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru

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