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Ask HN: is http://www.fcc.gov/comments down for anyone else?
So if I have this correctly, the FCC set up an app to get public comment on FCC related issues (most notably right now Net Neutrality) and the public comment period is something they're obligated to do under law, yet the system they've created does not work or fulfill its purpose:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments
Has this site just flat out not worked for anyone since the public comment period began May 15th?
Is this an issue of the site being overloaded at the moment?
Maybe it's some kind of ironic commentary on how user rights and free speech will suffer under the FCCs new proposed rules?
- doctorshady 12y agoLast I checked an FCC proceeding on Friday it worked. Not so much right now, though. I just get an error saying "Cannot open connection" after a long pause. My suspicion is someone might be ddosing it out of outrage, but it could just as easily be their own problems. The commenting system did stop working once in February or so. EDIT: Their main site seems to be up, so I assume it's not anything shady.
- dmschulman 12y agoYeah, I should have been more exact in my initial wording. This is the error I was receiving as well, though I check it now and instead am getting an error from my browser ("No Data Received") instead of getting the "Cannot open connection" error from the service. I noticed on Techcrunch today there was a segment on John Oliver's Sunday night HBO show where he discusses Net Neutrality. I didn't watch the clip but maybe the outage is related to this.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> Has this site just flat out not worked for anyone since the public comment period began May 15th? The site is up and shows 45,647 comments on Proceeding 14-28 "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet" in the period since comments opened on it (which is more than 30 times the activity of the next-heaviest over the past 30 days), so it clearly has worked for some people. I suspect any errors you are encountering (the only error I see is if you attempt to click through the link to the existing public comments) are because of an unanticipated activity level resulting from the fact that the comment link is being broadcast with many opinion articles/broadcasts on the issue accompanied by calls to flood the system.
- shayna123 12y agoThis is crazy, I can't believe this insanity. If not for John Oliver I wouldn't even know about net neutrality. Who thought this up anyway!!!
- ozten 12y agoI had to re-submit 4 times before it saved successfully. Their EJB prints SQL back to you. Wonderful. to retry: Hit back, confirm, submit again.
- leftydunne 12y agois this the fcc? a lobbyist should not be able to influence regulations that are contrary to the public good. he should be excused due to conflict of interest. as a matter of fact, the whole motion should be excused!