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Recreation.gov

recreation.gov

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Re: Recreation.gov

#41

Post by kylebarron »

mceoin wrote: post #37
mbrameld wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell it doesn't provide availability information, though.

there is definitely an availability API. I helped lobby for it! We also implemented it at Hipcamp (If you can't find a signup form on the rec.gov website just contact them directly and ask for access. I think their team was rolling access out slowly as they hadn't finished building a fully fledged login system but last I checked they do want 3rd parties being able to build on top of that data)

That's super interesting. I didn't know about that. Any links to it?

Re: Recreation.gov

#42

Post by fingerlocks »

chrisseaton wrote: post #24
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.

Why don't they run a lottery rather than first-come-first-served on a website?

They do for some areas, such as The Enchantments in WA state. But they have limit on how many lottery tickets can be purchased for each sub-area.

Re: Recreation.gov

#43

Post by xur17 »

big_chungus wrote: post #27
rbritton wrote: post #14

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.

The reason I hate recaptcha: it's not just a rate-limit for one site, but for the entire web. Run a google dork? You'll have to find three more fire hydrants the next time you're signing up for a service. Install an ad blocker? Six more fire hydrants. Log out of google? Twelve more. Heaven forbid if I _actually_ scrape something. Hitting one site harder than an average user shouldn't force me to fill out captchas on…

Yeah, I'm getting incredibly frustrated with it as well. I block tracking on the web, so I'm constantly doing multiple pages of free identification for Google.

If I were building a bot for a site that uses captchas, I'd just use one of the many paid services that solve captchas. Last I checked, it was ~$0.003 per solve, hardly a blocker. To be honest, I wish I could easily use one of these solvers in my normal web browser...

Re: Recreation.gov

#44

Post by mceoin »

xxpor wrote: post #34
mceoin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*18F

facepalm Thanks, fixed.

All good.

And to your original comment. I'd also love to see the government building out solid technical teams for provision of services. I'm also a firm believer that for _some_ government functions, there's a strong argument for "government as a platform". Rec.gov is a great test bed for this; among many reasons it's (mostly) politically impartial, so is less.

For at least the online portion of parks reservation, we really want to be offering availability and booking via API, and incentivizing 3rd parties to compete on experience (UI/UX, etc.).

It gets tricky because this is newer terrain and areas like "who pays for support costs/requests" is still being hashed out.

Note: still important to have the government providing the base layer of functionality. Accessibility is important and capitalism won't solve for every piece of product minutia that government should provide.

Re: Recreation.gov

#45

Post by kristopolous »

oefrha wrote: post #19
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://re…

Luckily the movement towards a sanity of legible, functioning websites seems to be picking up steam. Let's just hope it continues.

Re: Recreation.gov

#46

Post by mceachen »

chrisseaton wrote: post #24
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.

Why don't they run a lottery rather than first-come-first-served on a website?

Because that would be fair and reasonable.

Re: Recreation.gov

#47

Post by mceoin »

xxpor wrote: post #29

Lol at the copyright notice at the bottom. I notice the app is made by Booz Allen Hamilton. It's a shame we have to farm this stuff out to contractors and not use the USDS or 18F.

Worth noting is that USDS got involved in the contracting stage to write certain language sections (e.g. availability API requirements).

My takeaway from watching this whole RFP process play out is that an early impactful leverage point is having USDS get involved in auditing/writing RFP requirements in the public interest (this was quite a few years ago, so they may already be more involved in all tech contracting decisions).

Without having a technically strong government team weighing in on contracting, I get the feeling that language and technical expertise falls on contractors/corporations/lobbyists to provide.

Re: Recreation.gov

#48

Post by mceoin »

So excited to see this on Hacker News!

Brief Shoutout for anyone who would like to see a better online experience for our National Parks System:

1. write into rec.gov asking for a booking API!

2. join accessland.org

3. build apps using Rec.gov's availability API

(disclaimer: I'm involved with accessland.org)

Re: Recreation.gov

#49

Post by mceoin »

kylebarron wrote: post #41
mceoin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is definitely an availability API. I helped lobby for it! We also implemented it at Hipcamp (If you can't find a signup form on the rec.gov website just contact them directly and ask for access. I think their team was rolling access out slowly as they hadn't finished building a fully fledged login system but last I checked they do want 3rd parties being able to build on top of that data)

That's super interesting. I didn't know about that. Any links to it?

email me and I can send you what I have if you are interested. eoin - at - sfdevlabs.com

Re: Recreation.gov

#50

Post by throwaway5752 »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #9
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.

My hypothesis was that a lot of folks (myself included) have started going hiking/etc on Black Friday instead of participating in the commercial aspects of the day? Anyways, I upvoted. Our parks/wilderness are one of the really great things about America.

That is a fantastic idea.
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