Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't think there is a good solution besides a deep anti-bot expertise whithin the primary website development team

But there is a solution: the website team should get their act together and remove the "first come first served" aspect altogether.

Do you, citizen, want to register? Cool - leave your e-mail and we'll call you. Is the service optional? Then we'll pick at random from the pool of applicants and e-mail them. Is the service mandatory? Then sign up and we'll call you once you reach the top of the queue. Add a quick ID/credit card/whatever check on top (like good concert venues do), regular e-mail updates to let people know they haven't been forgotten, and you're done.

Any second year CS student could write such a system. The difficult part is accepting that the current approach doesn't work and looking for alternatives.

"Thank you for waiting three weeks for your appointment selection. We are happy to offer you a time slot next Friday, from 1 pm to 1:15 pm. Click here to accept: [button]. If this does not suit you, click here to get sent back to the queue: [button]."

Half the point of these services tends to be giving users some choice in when they have to show up somewhere. Because not everyone can make time in the middle of business hours of an arbitrary day. Not to mention that you might simply be out of town.

Applicants specify their preferred time slots in decending order and the government agency chooses the time. This is how the my country does it.

>Then we'll pick at random from the pool of applicants and e-mail them

This is where having your own email domain with unlimited accounts is useful.

The thought did cross my mind, which is why I'd also ask for an ID or equivalent. If you don't show up with that specific ID on the day of your appointment, you lose the appointment. And you can use that ID number to deduplicate requests.

If you don't do that, I 100% agree with you - scalpers could then register with hundreds of accounts for reselling, and we would be back where we started.

>Do you, citizen, want to register? Cool - leave your e-mail and we'll call you. Is the service optional? Then we'll pick at random from the pool of applicants and e-mail them. Is the service mandatory? Then sign up and we'll call you once you reach the top of the queue.

Wait a minute, wouldn't that be more work for "us"?

Let me think ....

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