
This Website Will Self Destruct - boh123
https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com
======
FemmeAndroid
Hey,

Thanks so much for checking this out. I made this site as part of Ludum Dare
46, a game jam. The theme was "Keep it alive." I wanted to do something that
was positive and that would give people an outlet to write about their
experiences related to Covid. I've had to deal with some abuse, particularly
after the first week, but overall it's been an incredibly positive experience.

There are certainly a lot of improvements I hope to make soon. I honestly
built it in an evening and expected it might be dead within a day or two. That
it's lasted over a month is incredible.

With a large influx of new readers, I'm sure you'll come across a few less
savory posts. I'd encourage you to click the report button on the bottom of
the page.

Thanks so much for checking it out!

Edit: Since this is HN, and I'm bound to get the question - It's built with
Rails and Vue, with PaperCSS for the styling, Postgres for the database, and
Redis is being used as part of the spam mitigation system. Oh, and the DB
really will wipe itself if it goes more than 24 hours without a post.

~~~
NikolaNovak
1\. Thank you for doing this

2\. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much
these days

3\. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky,
emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon.
Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps
getting more visibility).

4\. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more
culpable/liable for any offensive messages you _don 't_ remove, or any freedom
of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad
that one has to think about these things :-/

5\. Best of luck! :)

~~~
kuzimoto
Regarding 4, it's a private website. I don't think freedom of speech applies.
If you have some sources that say otherwise I'd be interested to read them.

~~~
cyphar
The recent Section 230 executive order[1] would be relevant here. Normally
social networks have immunity from prosecution if they publish a defamatory or
libelous statement (this is the so-called "magazine stand" model). But if the
executive order is legal then selectively censoring (or "moderating") what
your users post means that immunity no longer applies and you can be sued for
any statement that you allowed a user to publish on your network.

This isn't directly related to First Amendment freedom of speech rights, the
issue is one of liability (but the purpose of the liability is -- allegedly --
to force platforms to uphold the principle of freedom of speech).

[1]: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-
or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-
preventing-online-censorship/)

~~~
EGreg
Democrats in Congress specifically grilled social network execs in the wake of
the perceived “fake news” crisis in 2016 and pushed the social networks to
adopt these fact-checking measures. Now the White House wants to strip their
immunity for it. So, which is it? Rock and hard place?

------
Waterluvian
In high school I thought of the opposite idea:

“This website contains a timer for seven days. If this timer reaches zero a
one million dollar donation will be made to numerous charities. The button
below resets the timer.”

I was going to call it “This is why we can’t have nice things”

But I couldn’t find a million dollars.

~~~
waynesonfire
I love the ideas in this response. To reset to the timer requires donating $$
to the cause.

~~~
jtolmar
I love the game theory of this.

For a charity, you could choose a good cause that upsets assholes. So they
have to donate money to the charity to prevent it from getting the money that
was donated.

~~~
lxmorj
Last donation dictates the charity that gets the money and resets the timer

~~~
dorgo
And the minimum amount must be >= last donation.

Edit: Wait, are we reinventing poker?

~~~
SkyBelow
What if you donate on behalf of a charity and which ever charity has most
donations gets the entire pot?

------
klenwell
Didn't Reddit do something like this with one of their April 1st experiments?
What ever happened with that?

Ah, here we go:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_(Reddit)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_\(Reddit\))

Looks like it lasted about 4 months. So I guess that gives us a baseline for
the over-under on the lifetime of this site.

~~~
harryh
The major difference is that an individual reddit account could only press the
button once and anonymous presses were not allowed.

A single person can send an unlimited number of messages to this new website.

Given that I would expect this to go longer.

On the other hand, The Button was an april fools experiment on one of the
internet's most popular websites and thus garnered a ton of attention. This
could easily fade into obscurity much faster.

So who knows!

~~~
DC-3
Also worth noting that accounts created after the start of the event were
barred from participating.

------
sillysaurusx
_Dear Website,

I wish I didn’t make this life I have. I wish I had made different choices and
had the foreknowledge to not meet certain people. I wish I felt happier with
what I have, instead of yearning for the things and situations I don’t._

I just wanted to say, whoever posted this, things can get better. I was in
much the same situation about four years ago.

One thing that helped greatly was antidepressants. But that's a can of worms
that seems to upset people whenever it's brought up, so perhaps I'll just
mention it in passing.

Good luck, whoever and wherever you are.

~~~
glasshead969
Thanks for this.

I am not person who wrote the message but I am in similar situation, may be
it’s the quarentine and being alone at home for weeks now but I have been
thinking about my choices and mistakes.

I hope it gets better eventually.

~~~
aphrax
It will get better eventually, take care & feel free to email me

------
kiernanmcgowan
Toss this into a cronjob and the website will never die ;)

curl -XPOST -d 'body=you cant die. you will never die'
"[https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com/api/send_letter"](https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com/api/send_letter")

~~~
FemmeAndroid
Hi! I made this. I'm not going to talk too much about the back end of the
system, but that won't work.

:)

~~~
saagarjha
Would you be willing to talk about it once it self-destructs?

~~~
FemmeAndroid
Yeah, I'll definitely do a postmortem of some kind, and go into the moderation
tools I built for this.

~~~
EKSolutions
It's a shame really, I both really want to see the technical details from that
post-mortem but, at the same time, I don't want to see such an amazing project
go.

~~~
duckmysick
The cynic in me thinks the website won't self destruct, but instead will stop
working because the domain isn't renewed or the server isn't responding.

------
elliekelly
Please considering adding a privacy policy and some CYA legalese. I know it
probably seems excessive and unnecessary but I would just hate to see someone
wind up in a whole mess of trouble for a super cool side project that was
supposed to be fun.

The FTC has resources for small-business COPPA compliance and there are plenty
of free tools to help with a privacy policy.

~~~
FemmeAndroid
This is extremely high on the todo list. It was going to be done this weekend,
but then I ended up living a little too close to some of the ongoing protests
in the US to concentrate on getting it done.

Thanks for the reminder.

------
hiisukun
I'm late to the party, but wanted to say I really liked the slight tilt on the
wonderful floating buttons, with their gentle shadow and floaty-but-satisfying
animation.

Great page and excellent attention to the little details that makes it feel
like it was made with love :)

------
snazz
This is wonderful. How is content moderation being addressed? That's always
going to be my primary concern with this sort of thing.

~~~
surround
There’s a “report” button at the bottom.

------
csunbird
One of the notes included a base64 encoded message that reads:

"You are Big Brain. Good job finding an Easter egg. Know that God is Real.
Believe in Jesus Christ and repent for your sins. It's not just a bunch of
rules you have to follow but a relationship with him. Know that everything
happens for a reason and God only wants the best for you."

------
wsinks
Does anyone else experience that if you highlight the seconds counting down on
the webpage that they disappear?

And that if you reload the webpage, it's always at the appropriate seconds for
24 hours?

~~~
trox
Concerning the second question: I assume it is displaying the placeholder
value before replacing it with the actual value.

------
the_duke
First message I read below.

A Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen.

And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

And if it is, that’s not my fault.

And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

And if I did…

You deserved it.

------
ozdevi
This is a great idea and what a coincidence, just one week ago I posted a side
project to HN that aims to build a website completely by user requests from
scratch, while your website is destructing itself.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23315733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23315733)
// [https://userbricks.com/](https://userbricks.com/)

------
ibdf
lol - I expected to see this in the messages... was not disappointed.

1 AND 1=2 UNION SELECT table_schema, table_name, 1 FROM
information_schema.tables

------
liquidify
The website could sell advertisement space for crypto currency, and pay its
hosting fees automatically. It could become autonomous.

------
jtxt
Dear Website,

If you were a person you would be the type that threatens suicide for
attention. Not the most healthy. Good luck!

------
elwell
Unique design. When I right-clicked to view page source the tilted orientation
surprised me. It's like in life, you can realize something is a bit-off, and
then time passes, and you get used to it. Then one day, a 'true north' appears
and you realize how tilted your perspective was.

------
ToFab123
Reminds me of "the really big button that doesn't do anything" from www early
days

[https://krystalrose.com/rosewood/library/BigButton.htm](https://krystalrose.com/rosewood/library/BigButton.htm)

------
shultays
I remember something like this, it was not the website itself but you were
keeping a character in space alive by supplying air to her? or something
similar.

Eventually she died because because of website having issues and people not
being able to support her

------
kruasan
Someone posted this, whatever that means:

𐐌 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐑉𐐴𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐻𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻, 𐐮𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅 𐐿𐐭𐑊. 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐿𐑅 𐐼𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑉𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑄𐐰𐑌 𐑅𐐻𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌
𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐐲𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐩𐑋 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐑁𐐫𐑉𐑋𐐼 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐑄 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻. 𐐆𐑋𐐰𐐾𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐲𐑅𐐲𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉
𐐹𐑉𐐰𐐿𐐻𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐐹𐐲𐑉𐐹𐐲𐑅𐑆.

𐐡𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑋 𐐼𐐭𐐼 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐑉𐐨𐑀𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐑄 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐈𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻 .

~~~
alexjm
That's Deseret, an alternate alphabet for English. According to a converter,
it says:

> I like writing in this text, it looks cool. Works different than standard
> old Latin alphabet, but at the same time formed* from the Latin alphabet.
> Imagine this being used for practical purposes. Random dude intrigued by the
> Deseret Alphabet.

* The converter gave me "/f/aw/r/m/d/" here

------
Pxtl
Surprisingly low number of SQL injection attempts and hateful screeds in the
"read a message".

Although I did see what looks like a blockquote rendered in what looked like
code blocks. Markdown?

------
trynewideas
first one I got encouraged suicide (starting "Being dead is actually not that
bad") and it was such a "dead dove do not eat" situation, why did I fall for
this stupid link

~~~
bananamerica
People write what they want. I only saw nice messages.

------
sozy777
Can anyone explain what's so special about this website?

I'm missing the point

~~~
jachee
In the creator's own words:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374842)

------
marakv2
Damn op that's addictive as hell.

Some of the things you read can be incredibly sad, to be followed by something
inspirational.

Excellent job, I'm interested in just how long it lasts!

------
system2
The amount of CSS went into those boxes is mind-boggling.

------
tjchear
This reminds me of an indie game (or a web game) where players have to press a
button to keep a girl alive. Does anyone remember what it's called?

------
egfx
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531265)

------
netsec_burn
Looks like the messages can serve XSS payloads. I just came across one.
Perhaps self destruction of this codebase wouldn't be so bad.

~~~
FemmeAndroid
That shouldn't be possible. They might try to, but it won't work. If you
really did see one, please let me know what it was doing so I can figure out
what happened, and if someone else does, please report it. There's a report
button at the bottom of every page.

------
achairapart
Funny thing is that no website will live on forever, so, in some way, every
website fate is just to self destruct at some point.

------
ganstyles
This is a cool concept! Lots of messages appear to be people spamming their
twitch or whatever IDs asking for followers.

------
robinnift
How can i create a similar website for a polling or getting a survey on some
topic? I am no coder.

~~~
Minor49er
You can use sites like surveymonkey.com or strawpoll.me

------
Illniyar
The design of the site is just perfect. I love it. (And the idea is awesome
too)

------
totetsu
Surely the post-to-hackernews button should self destruct after one use also..

------
air7
Very beautiful and inspiring. How did you get the word out once it was ready?

------
divbzero
“Depression is like drowning in a shallow bath. Never give up.”

------
xook
It reminds me of Space Email but with a twist. This is cool!

------
m1117
That's great that it'll self destruct!

------
moulei
someone said "Could you publish your source code thx“ lol

------
for_i_in_range
First message I got:

“Dear Website,

I wish I was aborted.”

------
ronack
Dear Website,

I wish you would put the "Read a message" button above the content so it
doesn't jump around vertically each time I click it.

