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Comment by catone | Hacker News Reader

I just didn't want to sound spammy and keep the discussion high level. But since you asked... ;)

http://www.dandyid.org/beta/apicontest

well, right out of the gate -- i tried making an account and it lets me request an API key. i have absolutely no clue what i want to do with the API key, but to obtain one, it requires me to enter in some committed data.

the lack of API key requests might be due to the fact that someone should probably have an idea they want to work on before they request one. otherwise, i'd have one now.

We just today dropped approval on API key requests -- so they're instant, but we do still require some info (product name/description). We note in the how to enter area of the contest page to just put "API contest entry" in the description field when applying for an API key, but do you think that is still too great a barrier to entry?

well, i'm just pointing out that i wanted to request one without having any concept for a product. no clue what it would do or what i would call it. just want to have a key so that i could experiment and see what i can do with it.

you're basically saying, we want you to play around with our API, but you're not allowed to play around with it.

Thanks for all of your feedback (DandyID co-founder here). The product/url/description can be entered as "N/A" or whatever -- I'm adding this into the subtext of those fields right now. I'm also adding a link to the API documentation from the signup page. Appreciate these ideas!

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