Recreation.gov • Hacker News Board

Re: Recreation.gov

#11

Post by par » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #6

They REALLY need recaptcha on park reservations, or some sort of other automation. I'm 90% sure that botting is the only realistic way to get campsites in some high demand areas (such as lower and upper pines of Yosemite). I'm convinced the only reason there's not MORE scripts around to do it is because their API/web framework is impossibly ugly and not intuitive.

I had to write a script to be able to find an opening for Yosemite *Pines campgrounds. It was really the only way to find anything without booking months in advance (which all get snapped up immediately anyway.)

Re: Recreation.gov

#12

Post by kylebarron » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

FYI recreation.gov also has an API: https://ridb.recreation.gov/

Edit: the National Park Service also has its own API: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/developer/api-documentation.htm

Re: Recreation.gov

#13

Post by electriclove » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #6

They REALLY need recaptcha on park reservations, or some sort of other automation. I'm 90% sure that botting is the only realistic way to get campsites in some high demand areas (such as lower and upper pines of Yosemite). I'm convinced the only reason there's not MORE scripts around to do it is because their API/web framework is impossibly ugly and not intuitive.

Any good bots or services you would recommend?

Re: Recreation.gov

#14

Post by rbritton » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

Not reCAPTCHA, please. It’s horrendous in any environment that blocks any real amount of tracking. Rate limiting would solve the bot issue without inconveniencing regular users.

Re: Recreation.gov

#15

Post by Itsdijital » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #8

Recreation.gov has been around for years and it doesn't seem to have been updated substantially recently. It's a great resource and I hope people use it to visit US wildlife areas, but I am curious why it has been submitted.

I didn't know about it so I'm glad it was

Re: Recreation.gov

#16

Post by ben174 » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.

Re: Recreation.gov

#17

Post by pharrington » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #8

Recreation.gov has been around for years and it doesn't seem to have been updated substantially recently. It's a great resource and I hope people use it to visit US wildlife areas, but I am curious why it has been submitted.

I'm also curious as to why it was submitted, but since this website is new to mew, I'm very glad it was submitted.

Re: Recreation.gov

#18

Post by reagan83 » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

ben174 wrote: post #16

I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.

Can you elaborate? This sounds interesting...

Re: Recreation.gov

#19

Post by oefrha » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

abhiminator wrote: post #4

This is fantastic. The search RP displays parks and sites in the increasing order of distance as well as the price from the input zip code, and pulls together places from different government agencies like Fish and Wildlife Service, NPS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, etc. They also seem to have a nice collection of KB articles under the 'Help' link [0] in the header. [0] https://recreationonestoppr…

I can't be the only one who's not a fan of being served close to a megabyte of JavaScript for some support articles (site is useless without JS).

To add insult to injury, the landing page has a 2118x1415, 2.6MiB background image.[1] Doing a `-quality 70 -resize 50%` conversion to JPEG results in a mere 176KiB.

Although, having experienced service-now.com in other settings, it definitely could be worse.

[1] https://recreationonestopprod.service-now.com/83f45a56dbbbab...

Re: Recreation.gov

#20

Post by indlebe » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #8

Recreation.gov has been around for years and it doesn't seem to have been updated substantially recently. It's a great resource and I hope people use it to visit US wildlife areas, but I am curious why it has been submitted.

karma