11 ms·
UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit
- billpg 8y agoLink to petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 Currently... "Petitions is down for maintenance. We know about it and we're working on it. Please try again later."
- douglasfshearer 8y agoOne of the developers tweeted last night "...nowhere near crashing the site - you all need to try harder tomorrow" https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995 https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995
- gpmcadam 8y agoHow do you know that's one of the developers?
- corobo 8y agoI thought the same thing - the company the person is CTO of builds the petitions website if you click through the link in their bio and then into their projects page https://unboxed.co/product-stories/petitions/ https://unboxed.co/product-stories/petitions/ e: This came out worded as if I was disproving, I'm agreeing with the grandparent comment and showing my working
- zero_iq 8y agoIt seems pretty plausible. His tweets give information about why the site crashed, some discussion about how the back-end works, and the company he claims to work for lists the Petitions website as one of their projects.
- ksec 8y agoThe whole site is actually open source. Running on Ruby Rails. [1] https://github.com/alphagov/e-petitions https://github.com/alphagov/e-petitions
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- colinramsay 8y agoThese petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/government_response_to_the_petition_undertake_an/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings on this petition obviously does reflect _something_, I'm not sure it's actually doing anything meaningful. Likewise the upcoming march this weekend for a Peoples Vote: https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march These are now simply ignored. The sheer stubbornness of Theresa May's position as evidenced by her statement last night means we're going to go to the wire on something that's been worked on for years. People calling it a national disgrace are absolutely correct. I can only hope that the pressure exerted from various angles (petition, march, sane MPs) will result in Parliament revoking Article 50, but I don't see it happening. It would be too prudent for this parody of a political system. edit: the site's back now. Apparently it runs on Rails with DelayedJob doing most of the grunt work in the background. edit2: just found the most popular petition on there with over 4m votes and absolutely nothing came of that: https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/131215 https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/131215
- misnome 8y agoI think mostly everyone signing this knows this. But it’s not as though we’ve been listened to in any way. I like the summary of @bootstrapcool on Twitter: “God knows we've tried everything else.[...] A brief use of collective impotent fury and a tiny squeak into the black holes of our futures, but it's something.”
- colinramsay 8y agoAbsolutely. I'm not positive about the outcome but I wouldn't berate people for trying, hence my comment "I can only hope that the pressure exerted from various angles (petition, march, sane MPs) will result in Parliament revoking Article 50". I've signed it myself!
- 8y ago
- franky47 8y agoI made a progress bar with React to compare it to the NoDeal petition, for when the JSON endpoints come back up: https://brexit-petitions-count.now.sh/ https://brexit-petitions-count.now.sh/
- nickcotter 8y agoCool, hopefully this isn't adding to the load! Can we have a graph too please?
- buboard 8y agowill there be a "reinvoke article 50" after this?
- jackweirdy 8y agoWhen this stage of leaving is complete and discussion turns to the future relationship, I expect the EU will replace article 50 with something fit for purpose. Article 50 itself is very short and doesn’t explain any ifs and buts of the process. The courts had to interpret it a few times to determine things like how revocation works, how can extensions happen, etc.
- chillydawg 8y agoTo be honest I think it works pretty well. It's the UK government that's broken.
- Zenst 8y agoIndeed, Article 50 is flawed in many areas. One big flaw I raised with the EU authorita's in 2015 was that it has no provision for displaced nationals. I raised that several times, serveral MEP's from many countries, Tusk, you name it. The response - nada, nothing, zilch and even too this day, not one single MEP or eurocrat has bothered to fix that glaring flaw that sees and allows innocent nationals to be used as negotiation pawns. Even now, no attempts are being made or driven to fix this oversight in Article 50 and that kind of lack of priority and care is never going to win votes in the public's eye's. So it could all happen again, causing undue and unfair stress upon innocent people caught up in a situation that could of been totally avoided.
- AndrewDucker 8y agoJust worked for me. It's clearly intermittent.
- corobo 8y agoThis will result in nothing more than a response of "The Government’s policy is not to revoke Article 50. Instead, we continue to work with Parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union as planned" I have signed, however. Prove me wrong, UK Govt
- rjmunro 8y agoThey seem to have fixed it by removing the "popular petitions" section from the home page. I guess it's possible that there are no popular petitions in the last hour because of the outage.
- vectorEQ 8y agolets base our decisions and policies on internet polls. it's 2019 yolo
- corobo 8y agoWell that's how this whole thing started, minus the internet part..
- richardknop 8y agoIt was a proper referendum, not very comparable to easily game-able internet poll.
- corobo 8y agoNot easy to game at all aye https://i.imgsir.com/RZKw.png https://i.imgsir.com/RZKw.png I get what you're saying but this poll is to say "Please look at this further" not "Please instantly do this thing in the poll"
- wahern 8y agoBut haven't you Brits always been conflicted over the EU? I mean, significantly more than other nations? Looking at the big picture as an outsider (American), it's probably better that the UK leave the EU. The EU will be stronger and more united. Even if Brexit doesn't destroy the UK economy[1], politicians everywhere in Europe (including the UK) would no longer be able to speak entirely in hypotheticals, which otherwise make it easy to string along the electorate as well as keep the electorate fickle. Brexit will finally realize the counterfactual that previously anybody and everybody could fabricate from whole cloth. Indeed, it'll also provide a much needed counterfactual in American political discourse and possibly elsewhere. OTOH, I really like the suggestion in a comment to one of CGP Grey's Brexit videos: the UK and EU could simply ceremoniously reenact the Article 50 withdrawal notice and extension request every year on a new EU-wide holiday, Brexit Day. It provides substantially the same political catharsis, but in perpetuity. And it's perfectly consonant with English political culture more generally--anachronisms that not only bridge time but reconcile conservative and liberal political modalities. Note: It's important that, at least theoretically, the ritual reenactment preserves the real threat of Brexit. Like with a roller coaster, the appetite for self-destruction cannot be sated without uncertainty. [1] I mean, pro-Brexit activists were always dishonest and full of sh*t. Here's a mea culpa where an activist admits as much, even while continuing to lie to himself: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-brexiteers-forgot-about-the-border-1.3831635 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-brexiteers-forgot-abo... But, honestly, who knows what will happen post Brexit. Short term dislocation for sure, but beyond that it's a fool's game to make hard predictions.
- Jamie452 8y agoBBC Coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47652071 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47652071
- ariehkovler 8y agoHey, that's my tweet! At the time it went down, I was seeing 2k signups a minute and rising. I was just thinking how the load handling was impressive when poof it was down. Back now, though, which is also pretty good. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 UPDATE: It's down again. 502 bad gateway. I was seeing close to 3k signups a minute when it fell over this time. UPDATE 2: Seems to be back? Clearly unstable though with these load levels.
- Jamie452 8y agoYour tweet had the best pictures, hope you don’t mind! I noted 3,350 per minute about 20 minutes ago!
- ariehkovler 8y agoYup. Which probably explains why it just fell over again. Also no worries for posting :)
- jpdus 8y agoStill 502, can't get the page to load.
- arethuza 8y agoI did see a few 502 pages, but eventually got it to work - haven't received the email though. Update: Eventually got the email and confirmed my support.
- aasasd 8y agoHuh, 50 requests a second is a pretty meh number in my book.
- ksec 8y agoIt crashed at peak 6K Signup / Min. I am hoping this won't turn into bad press for Ruby Rails. Or in marketing terms they could have use Request / Min.
- jonplackett 8y agoPetitions for Brexit are completely pointless. We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove much does it. (FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established what people's opinions are)
- colinramsay 8y agoWhile I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Likewise, you could say: voting population of UK - 17.6m leave votes = people who didn't vote for Brexit Which is a huge majority and by that measure we shouldn't leave. I don't agree with that standpoint either, but both your viewpoint and that are misrepresentations.
- coldtea 8y ago>While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count. Percentages in elections are of active voters. Unless they were prevented from voting some way, their post-facto protests are meaningless. You can't have your cake (not give a toss about votes and not participate) and eat it (still have your opinion matter on voted topics) too
- colinramsay 8y agoI agree. But the statement "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay" is still false.
- coldtea 8y agoTaken literally it is indeed false. But in democracies the percentages who want this or that are counted through voting. So technically, it is correct.
- _pmf_ 8y agoIt's a sign from above that you should respect the valid vote for "leave".
- sourcesmith 8y agoThe leave campaign was illegally funded. If the referendum was not advisory it would have had to have been re-run. So how is it valid?
- sbhn 8y agoArticle 50 was triggered by an unelected prime minister
- mhw 8y ago"Well done everyone - the site crashed because calculating the trending count became too much of a load on the database but we're back now at around 180k per hour by my estimation." https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136 https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136
- nytesky 8y agoI know much of UK wants to remain, and Brexit is a mess, with EU Japan-ification and inherent mismatch of fiscal policy with monetary policy b/c of sovereign states, maybe UK will ultimately come out ahead as economic free agent?
- BattyMilk 8y agoMaybe if you bet on Burnley to win the premier League next season you will win a fortune. All signs, experience and educated opinions, however point to this being a losing bet
- matthewmacleod 8y agoIt is possible that, over a generation-scale timescale, there will be some benefits to the UK's position. I don't think that anybody can reasonably argue against that, simply because of the uncertainty of the distant future. The problem with that: the EU/EFTA is a large economic and regulatory power, with which the majority of UK international trade occurs (60% of imports and 48% of exports). This is basically a consequence of both geographic and cultural proximity. The result is that UK regulatory and trade regimes will be heavily influenced by actions of the EU/EFTA market in terms of regulation and trade policy; the UK will need to remain closely aligned for the foreseeable future. This means that being "outside" that market introduces obvious inefficiencies and costs, with few indications of any economic benefits that may emerge.
- huffmsa 8y agoThe chance to "petition" was before the vote happened in 2016. You've made your bed, time to sleep in it.
- isostatic 8y agoThe country has changed its mind, but those in power haven't, because May (stubborn) and Corbyn (wants a hard brexit which he thinks will drive people to his brand of economics) don't accept it.
- huffmsa 8y agoThen have a vote about rejoining the EU after you crash out. Real life isn't a video game. You don't get to replay from your last save if you don't like the outcome.
- cal97g 8y agolet me know when they get to 17.4 million signatures.
- cal97g 8y agoSomebody let me know if they reach 17,400,000 signatures; because if they don't it's completely irrelevant. Not that signatures can't be faked; which seems much more likely.
- laurent123456 8y agoIt worked for me on the third attempt to submit, but I didn't get the confirmation email, so probably that's down as well.
- albertgoeswoof 8y agoThe map view is quite interesting: https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584 https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584
- xhruso00 8y agoDamage has been done and all the EU institutions are on leave and won't come back. Even if UK delays the leave it won't save them from damage that has been done. It's only the politicians now who are trying to save their reputation. Sadly, they are willing to sacrifice country well-being to remain be seen as heroes. Britain already has "special status"[1] that was given to it in before referendum. No other country in EU has such a deal. [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35622105 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35622105
- ReptileMan 8y agoAm I the only one that finds the ECJ decision that UK can unilaterally decide to stay deeply wrong and offensive? This is absurd. You announce to leave there should be no going back.
- Simulacra 8y agoIf I recall correctly, is not the invoking of Article 50 non-revocable?
- nickcotter 8y agoIt's perfectly revocable, until 11pm 29th March. Opinion is divided as to whether it requires Parliament or if the Government can do it without further ado.
- Simulacra 8y agoSo what happens on March 30th if it is not revoked? Nine days from now is truly the point of no return?
- isostatic 8y agoThen all treaties the UK is part of with the EU cease to apply The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period. That includes things like the treaties that allow planes to fly between the UK and EU, or the UK and the U.S (as the treaties covering that are between the EU and US) Even overflights of EU by UK will struggle - Chicago allows them, but will EU air safety recognize the UK's CAA There have been various platitudes about how neither side wants this to happen, but not very clear how legally it will happen.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- johnnycab 8y agoWe already had a robust set of tools in our technology stack to help us scale. Our primary tool is a combination of Amazon CloudFormation and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) which we use to automatically deploy and scale instances in response to demand. Backing these instances is a PostgreSQL RDS database which acts as our primary data store. One other component in our stack is Amazon ElastiCache, a key-value store configured with the open-source Memcached engine, which caches generated fragments of HTML so we can speed up page build times. https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petitions-service-following-the-eu-referendum/ https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petiti... Perhaps, a petition is required to employ a new Cloud Architect, as this is not the first time the Petitions service has had to cope with extra traffic & spew out 502 Bad Gateway error.
- jlokier 8y agoThis morning, the petition was getting about 60 signatures per second. I extrapolated it would reach about 1.15 million by noon. The rate was quite steady, and had accelerated gradually. Then the site started crashing, and it slowed drastically (between 502 Bad Gateway nginx errors :-), at one point one signature in several minutes. Then it resumed, but only at 20/s, and intermittently. Now it is clocking up again, but at about 30/s. It's impossible to be sure, but with this abrupt change of rates, I think it very likely the outage is continuing to affect many people trying to sign it, and will have a significant effect on the total number of signatures that are achieved.