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mmathias

Show HN: URL Roulette – redesigned site for discovering human-submitted links

https://urlroulette.net/

URL Roulette allows you to submit a link and, in return, you are taken to a random site that someone else posted - no algorithm, no ranking, no AI‐generated content. It has been operating since 2017 and currently contains about 190K human‐submitted links in rotation.I reconstructed the whole project over the summer and it is now back online. I launched a weekly newsletter named The Vault that...

( Read More... | no comments | on HN )

Ask HN: Browser Mmorpg

Back in the days there used to be free (sci-fi) mmorp games that you could play in your browser where you log in once or twice a day, command your units and the game would continue while you were offline. Do those games still exist? Are there newer ones?

( Read More... | 1 comment | 3 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Favourite open source game? on Thursday June 02, 2022 @03:35AM (#31592411)
Sonic Robo Blast 2 - https://www.srb2.org/ ... and especially ... SRB2Kart - https://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/SRB2Kart (!)
Re:Ask HN: What did you make during lockdown? on Sunday June 21, 2020 @03:37PM (#23594728)
I made V.O.B.S., a system that lets you produce interactive TV shows using the internet as a transport medium, multiple webcams in different locations and our server infrastructure.

https://vobs.io/

My project "UrlRoulette" was on the HN homepage for about 24 hours. I received a huge traffic spike at the start. Since then traffic came from other sources such as Reddit, some blog posts and articles that were written - and of course some search engines. After being on HN, UrlRoulette was featured in the german C'T magazine and received a lot of traffic from their website and their print edition. Also, being featured on some more sites certainly helped pushing the site's page rank on Google.

The project: https://urlroulette.net/

I actually wrote a post about being on the HN front page: https://hackernoon.com/urlroulette-24-hours-on-hacker-news-e...

Yes, sorry, didn't think about that. Changed the title.
By the way, URLRoulette has a disclaimer that says

"Use at your own risk, the internet is a dangerous place!!"

Yes, but they are no longer distributed to users. I thought that was the original question. I'm keeping them in the database to check for SPAM/multiple submissions mainly.
Well, that could happen on any website that you visit. IMO it does not make a difference whether you know the link before you click it or not, because you still don't know what you will get. But I am thinking about implementing some sort of virus/malware scanning.
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @05:40PM (#14122989)
Yes, it does, but I think there is almost no way around that. Many sites still use query parameters to show a specific blog entry for example... :/
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @05:12PM (#14122890)
Wow, HN front page! About one visit every two seconds! Crazy! :)
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @05:02PM (#14122849)
They get removed.
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @04:49PM (#14122788)
Thank you, that sounds like a good idea!
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @04:40PM (#14122740)
:)
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @04:39PM (#14122734)
Wow, thanks, that's a long list. Will try to implement in the coming days... :)
Re:Show HN: UrlRoulette – Pass a URL to the next visitor on Saturday April 15, 2017 @04:38PM (#14122731)
Yes, UrlRoulette tries its best not to redirect you to the links that you submitted - that would be boring.

All the low-quality stuff: yes, that's the other users! :)

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