Instant, Self-Destructing Websites
Productivity
ephemeral note pages
SHOW HN2019
242points
63comments
#145of 2,195 in 2019
Top 7%of 2019 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
18 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 7 critical, out of 44 comments about the project. Thread score +0.28.
Idea: 9 for, 0 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Ephemeral concept feels fresh and fun
From 4 comments
Ephemera. I miss living in New York City because of the street art. The web would benefit from open air ephemerality. Real ephemerality, not "your photos and videos disappear to…
nessunodoro on HNI really love ideas like this (and this one is so nicely done!). Reminds me of when "wiki wikis" first started, and many were publicly editable (ah, simpler times!). I'd love to…
mrspeaker on HNThis is cool! It's like a wiki, but there's no structure imposed and everything's ephemeral. Would be interesting to see what happens over time. Some feedback for the author: it…
brenden2 on HNI actually love this, hands down amazing for blogs
gucciTheWizard on HN
Good for blog posts
From 2 comments
This is cool for blog posts.
hoki on HNI actually love this, hands down amazing for blogs
gucciTheWizard on HN
Works without JavaScript and has no required passwords
From 2 comments
Love this, particularly that you can view the content without JavaScript as well. If you can solve the "potential for abuse" problem while maintaining this format, you've got…
AlexDragusin on HNEphemera. I miss living in New York City because of the street art. The web would benefit from open air ephemerality. Real ephemerality, not "your photos and videos disappear to…
nessunodoro on HN
Objections
Abuse potential: illegal or brand-impersonating content
From 4 comments
This is cool, but seems ripe for abuse. Do you have a plan to deal with that?
SheinhardtWigCo on HNYeah, I had a question around how to stop people from claiming "legit" brands and bashing them? I could easily see someone take a brand like Uber or Airbnb and start creating…
garysahota93 on HNOr worse like paste in, Bitcoin and other public places people will post urls to terrible/illegal things on the internet. People always find a way to ruin the public commons.
conception on HNHonestly, a more scarier concern is that there is likely to various illegal things posted on this as soon as enough people get on it.
erklik on HN
Passwords can be added by others to lock unpassworded pages
From 2 comments
Love this, really fun idea. It would be nice to have a setting that prevents a password from being added to the page. Right now, all it takes to end the fun of an unpassworded…
NickNaraghi on HNhttps://sdnotes.com/index damn beat me to it
fuzz4lyfe on HN
Weak security and possible XSS on pages
From 2 comments
Love all the XSS attempts
iCarrot on HNI assume a lite site like this doesn't having any kind of rate limiting feature so it would be simplicity to brute force a page's password.
irrational on HN
Requests
Markdown support
From 3 comments
I really like this concept, and you've done a nice job stripping away everything except the bare minimum essentials. That being said, are there any plans to support markdown?…
amplecooz on HN+1 .. Markdown would be awesome!
garysahota93 on HNGood idea! Currently it supports some HTML elements using Rails' simple_format (<b>, <i>, etc), but Markdown would definitely be an improvement.
unfl on HN
Feed or discovery of latest pages
From 3 comments
A feed with latest posts would be cool (after adding markdown support)
flockonus on HNThis is cool! It's like a wiki, but there's no structure imposed and everything's ephemeral. Would be interesting to see what happens over time. Some feedback for the author: it…
brenden2 on HNThis is actually very nice. I think discovery can make this site really catch on, like most active, featured, etc.
superasn on HN
Open source or self-hostable version
From 1 comment
open/GitHub/self-hostable?
indigodaddy on HN
Questions
Does content persist if updated every 30 days?
From 1 comment
So does it persist all of the posted content if the page is updated within every 30-day window?
52-6F-62 on HN
What password is set if the password box is left empty?
From 1 comment
What password is assigned if you inadvertently click "add password" with the password box still empty? If you click "add password" without first entering a password in the box,…
rfeague on HN
Alternatives named
txti.es
From 1 comment
This reminds me of http://txti.es/ (made by the people behind http://motherfuckingwebsite.com).
Porthos9K on HN
itty.bitty.site
From 1 comment
reminds me of https://itty.bitty.site/
shadowsock on HN
pocketweb.io
From 1 comment
A similar idea that we're working on: https://pocketweb.io/
shtack on HN