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I like the unintrusive UI, but what I would really like is markdown support. I am not sure if that fits _your_ initial idea, but I'm a tech person, so, for me t

I like the unintrusive UI, but what I would really like is markdown support. I am not sure if that fits _your_ initial idea, but I'm a tech person, so, for me that's a must. Also, add https, because google will punish you. Otherwise, well done.

stevekemp 6y ago
I created https://markdownshare.com/ https://markdownshare.com/ to allow anybody to create/share/render markdown. Unfortunately these kind of sites are an abuse magnet, so it is in the process of being retired. I think any sustainable site/service like this has to be self-hosted, or come with a subscription. Because otherwise dealing with all the bots, spam-submissions, and other abuse is just too depressing.
- tobeagram 6y ago
  MarkdownShare looks like a pretty neat service, I'm sorry to hear that people took advantage of it! Interesting that you mention a subscription service would more sustainable. I'm actually building a markdown note-taking app [1], that is based around a note-card format. We are currently developing a way to share a markdown card with a secure link. [1] https://supernotes.app https://supernotes.app
- tealpod 6y ago
  I know exactly what you mean. I made https://Write.wtf https://Write.wtf majority of it is just junk.
  - abi 6y ago
    Neat. Have you implemented any anti-spam controls? How much does it cost to keep it running?
- putsjoe 6y ago
  Would a captcha have helped?
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    I suspect it would have helped initially, but then it becomes an arms-race.
- rozab 6y ago
  Have you seen clientside-encrypted pastebins like 0bin[0]? The idea is to absolve the host of legal responsibility, since they can't even access the data without the decryption key in the URL. [0]: https://github.com/sametmax/0bin https://github.com/sametmax/0bin
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  Can you expand on the types of abuse you saw? Was it all just spam, or was some of it legitimately 'dodgy' ?
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    A combination of (bot) IP addresses making 20+ requests a second, to post SPAM. Half the abuse was people just making lots of requests in short spaces of time, the other half was just people submitting spam, more slowly. I added rate-limiting to deal with the worst offenders, but mostly they'd keep POSTing away, ignoring the error-codes I was sending. All submissions would get a random ID, something like this example chosen at random: https://markdownshare.com/view/b5abadcc-c0fb-473e-a34d-f27c0921865d https://markdownshare.com/view/b5abadcc-c0fb-473e-a34d-f27c0... There were numerous bots who'd try to spider/probe the site collecting all the links. Handling millions of 404s a month wasn't much of a pain, because the service was pretty efficient, but it was just another source of annoyance. Finally, and God only knows how, I'd get a ton of DCMA takedown notices for alleged copyright infringement. That's what pushed me over the edge into first of all making it read only, and secondly planning to kill it at the end of the year.
    - Jaruzel 6y ago
      Wow thanks for that. Makes one stop and think before coding anything similar. :(
    - abi 6y ago
      What do people gain from spamming your service? Referring especially to the ones that kept going despite error codes being sent their way.
      - stevekemp 6y ago
        Just bots spamming forms I guess, hoping to get indexed and ranked on google. The same thing you see on random blogs, I don't think there's anything specific about my service in particular - just badly coded bots that don't have retry logic and blindly spam the same content to thousands of sites that accept comments, content, and pingbacks.

stevekemp 6y ago

I created https://markdownshare.com/ https://markdownshare.com/ to allow anybody to create/share/render markdown. Unfortunately these kind of sites are an abuse magnet, so it is in the process of being retired. I think any sustainable site/service like this has to be self-hosted, or come with a subscription. Because otherwise dealing with all the bots, spam-submissions, and other abuse is just too depressing.

tobeagram 6y ago
MarkdownShare looks like a pretty neat service, I'm sorry to hear that people took advantage of it! Interesting that you mention a subscription service would more sustainable. I'm actually building a markdown note-taking app [1], that is based around a note-card format. We are currently developing a way to share a markdown card with a secure link. [1] https://supernotes.app https://supernotes.app
tealpod 6y ago
I know exactly what you mean. I made https://Write.wtf https://Write.wtf majority of it is just junk.
- abi 6y ago
  Neat. Have you implemented any anti-spam controls? How much does it cost to keep it running?
putsjoe 6y ago
Would a captcha have helped?
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I suspect it would have helped initially, but then it becomes an arms-race.
rozab 6y ago
Have you seen clientside-encrypted pastebins like 0bin[0]? The idea is to absolve the host of legal responsibility, since they can't even access the data without the decryption key in the URL. [0]: https://github.com/sametmax/0bin https://github.com/sametmax/0bin
Jaruzel 6y ago
Can you expand on the types of abuse you saw? Was it all just spam, or was some of it legitimately 'dodgy' ?
- stevekemp 6y ago
  A combination of (bot) IP addresses making 20+ requests a second, to post SPAM. Half the abuse was people just making lots of requests in short spaces of time, the other half was just people submitting spam, more slowly. I added rate-limiting to deal with the worst offenders, but mostly they'd keep POSTing away, ignoring the error-codes I was sending. All submissions would get a random ID, something like this example chosen at random: https://markdownshare.com/view/b5abadcc-c0fb-473e-a34d-f27c0921865d https://markdownshare.com/view/b5abadcc-c0fb-473e-a34d-f27c0... There were numerous bots who'd try to spider/probe the site collecting all the links. Handling millions of 404s a month wasn't much of a pain, because the service was pretty efficient, but it was just another source of annoyance. Finally, and God only knows how, I'd get a ton of DCMA takedown notices for alleged copyright infringement. That's what pushed me over the edge into first of all making it read only, and secondly planning to kill it at the end of the year.
  - Jaruzel 6y ago
    Wow thanks for that. Makes one stop and think before coding anything similar. :(
  - abi 6y ago
    What do people gain from spamming your service? Referring especially to the ones that kept going despite error codes being sent their way.
    - stevekemp 6y ago
      Just bots spamming forms I guess, hoping to get indexed and ranked on google. The same thing you see on random blogs, I don't think there's anything specific about my service in particular - just badly coded bots that don't have retry logic and blindly spam the same content to thousands of sites that accept comments, content, and pingbacks.