
HN create account removed from login page - leejw00t354
http://news.ycombinator.com/newslogin
======
thaumaturgy
pg (or possibly another admin these days) will remove the create-account
functionality if HN suddenly becomes very popular, as with the LinkedIn
thread. I'm trying to find one of his comments where he mentions this, but
there are 8,511 to wade through, and the obvious searches haven't found it
yet.

edit: I may have misremembered; the first reference I've found was
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3481174>, but I'm still looking.

edit: Gave up looking. I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

~~~
ramchip
Here you go: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3481174>

~~~
mistercow
That was a very classy way to say "I don't want reddit to do to HN what Digg
did to reddit."

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blhack
Yeah, but if you try to comment on something, it will prompt you to create an
account.

Go ahead an log out of your account and try to comment on this link.

~~~
why-el
Indeed that whats I tried exactly. it also makes sense for "newslogin" page to
show just that, a login.

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temp2012
Also, OpenID has been removed. How do I login with my Google account?

~~~
roel_v
You can't anymore. There was a post a few months ago that you should set a
password on the site itself to be able to continue to log on in the future
(future being now, since a couple of days or maybe even weeks already).

~~~
Zaak
I'm glad I saw this, because I didn't have an email or password set up.

In the future, when a major feature like this is removed, it would be nice to
see a banner across the top for people who will be affected.

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BryanB55
That is one fancy log in page...not even a "forgot password" link.

~~~
BryanB55
Its funny how defensive HN readers are. I love HN and its content but I'm just
wondering why there isnt a forgot password link? Seriously...?

~~~
koeselitz
I wondered that for a while, too. But there is a forgot password link,
actually. You just have to enter your username and leave the password field
blank, and then hit "login." You'll then be presented with a link to get a
newly-generated password in an email.

~~~
muddylemon
That's... intuitive.

~~~
SkyMarshal
It's not supposed to be, it's a hacker filter. Same with the color scheme,
design, etc.

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bravura
Perhaps related....

The past few days I've gotten _several_ emails from 'info@ycombinator.com'
telling me that I have a new password. (I received several new passwords in
the past few days.)

The header seems to indicate that the message was actually sent from
news.ycombinator.com.

Are these legit? Why am I receiving them? Has anyone else got one?

I've ignored them for now.

~~~
Hannan
If you try to log in with a valid username, but no password, you'll get a link
to email yourself a newly generated password. The text of the email is:

New Hacker News pw: <new password>

So someone probably thinks they have your username and are wondering why they
can't remember the password or receive an new password.

Far less likely is that someone could be trying to discover/exploit a timing
attack on the forgotten password generation algorithm.

~~~
Splines
> _Far less likely is that someone could be trying to discover/exploit a
> timing attack on the forgotten password generation algorithm._

Didn't somebody do that already?

~~~
eli
It was the session cookie key not the password, and it wasn't really a timing
attack in the sense the parent means.

But yeah <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639976>

------
Mz
I have been a tad out of the loop. Can someone clue me as to what LinkedIn
thingy is being referred to?

Thanks.

~~~
thedufer
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4073309>

LinkedIn's password database leaked earlier today.

~~~
Mz
Thank you. I am short of sleep and just didn't put 2 and 2 together. Duh.

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lubos
you can still create new account when submitting new content (while being
logged off)

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pauljonas
HN Search is broken too, or stopped updating circa 5 days ago…

…makes the site _much_ less useful for me, I must confess.

~~~
teeray
seriously... I have it as an autocomplete in chrome: hn[tab] and I can get
community-vetted stuff ^_^

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tubbo
countdown to people selling HN invites like it's a damn torrent tracker
</joke>

hopefully this maintenence takes care of the issue of the login page being
unstyled. i always thought it was supposed to go in a popup on the same page,
that would make sense given its unstyled markup.

~~~
gala8y
I dont think we are going to see a single pop-up anytime soon on HN. (Quick
edit: Site has minimal 'html/css only', _flat_ feel and pop-ups are a
different breed.)

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sparknlaunch
Noticed this today and assumed it was my local settings. Not that HN need to
consult or communicate to users but was this announced?

I suspect you can still sign up but via another screen?

~~~
kanamekun
This is a change to the registration interface. It shouldn't impact most
(any?) existing members...

The loss of openid button definitely affects existing members though...

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alttab
This could just be maintenance. I can't imagine its good for YC's business
model to shut down sign ups.

~~~
georgespencer
Please tell me more about YC's business model.

~~~
vladd
HN is mainly goodwill for YC (any VC would pay a fortune to have HN and its
audience).

So the parent comment seems to suggest that it's damaging to the goodwill of
the site to disable signups.

If this was a permanent change, I'd agree, but it may be temporary, and it's
not totally disabled (you can still signup by submitting content, as someone
else wrote).

~~~
briggsbio
vladd, while I completely agree that "HN is mainly goodwill for YC," I think
potentially your subsequent parenthetical statement shows misunderstanding of
a different business model, the VC model. Or, maybe it was just ambiguous
language easily misinterpreted by me (and, I'd assume, others as well).

Many content-based companies would love to acquire HN and its audience (e.g.
Conde Nast's Reddit acquisition). VCs would love to invest in an HN spin-out
to reap returns from said investment via a sale of the entity. However, "VCs
would pay a fortune to have HN and its audience," reads more like VC-as-
owner/PE rather than VC as investor.

Maybe I'm digging too deep in the semantics here, but this seems to be a point
that is often lost and VCs vaunted (or derided) as less investors-cum-advisors
and more private equity slash-and-burn corporate raiders.

Might a VC chime in here?

*edited for spell check and readability.

