[Nutar]

Note: The first two paragraphs are nothing related to the actual
suggestion. If you are willing to know how I came up with this and
how it may help me. Also, please forgive my bad English grammar
skills as English in not my foreign language.

Hello,
So I was in middle of planning for a project I was willing to create.
This project is a website where you can sell your signature space and
anyone can rent it for a set price. When someone rents it, it will
instantly change the signature of the user renting his sig. I had no
problem with that if the user puts the link I give him as an image in
his signature.

After sometime, a problem came up. Why will anyone rent a signature
space if they can't redirect a person clicking on it to their sales page?
At this point everything I made and did felt worthless, since that's the
whole point of creating this signature marketplace.

My question is, why doesn't HackForums have an API where I can
request the amount of posts, reputation or maybe change the
signature of a user.

I know it can be hard to code it, and maybe put the user's account at
risk if all the information needed to do a certain thing on the user's
account gets leaked. But we can have a monthly payment to get
access to the API, or a one-time fee. We can also have a person or
Omni look at the code so you can get an API key.

I want to know other user's opinions on this. And I hope Omni takes
this into consideration. After all, he will get paid for it. Also, I would
like to have Omni do a poll on this if users don't mind Omni
implementing it, if he ever considers implementing this.

Thanks for reading,
With regards,
Calypo.

EDIT: Regarding the signature problem, the user Dean Winchester helped me with it.
But I think we still need an API.

I feel I should elaborate. I will most likely be leaving HF (and many other services) in the near future if proper APIs are not at least planned for. Lately I have realized I personally disagree with not having a convenient way to retrieve information from a service that you contribute to. Allow me to explain on a larger scale without limiting my explanation to just HF.

For any site/application that has a social aspect the users (and their user-created content) tend to be the draw for new users. For instance if Facebook didn't have as many users as it does I would have no logical reason to use their service. So it follows that the success for any social site/app is based on usage of their current members and their work. By itself this is not a problem as the exchange is more akin to a symbiotic relationship than anything else. The problem comes in when said service stores and tracks information about their users. You now have an unfair exchange in favor of the service provider. They are able to use your data for any purpose (within the limits of the law) without providing you any means to access said data in a convenient manner. At a minimum any social-focused service should provide you a programmatic means of monitoring your input to said data pool.

With all of that said there are times where you can (in good faith) limit access to said data. The first is when access to such data would be detrimental to the safety/security of users. This is solved rather easily by allowing users the ability to opt-out of the API. The security side is easily solved with the usage of something like OAuth which has had rather few security issues when compared with your average forum software. The second is when the creation of said API would require a significant restructuring of the back-end of a service. This case would never apply to a forum (unless someone writes a P2P PKI-enabled forum with no centralized server/back-end). In the cases it does apply the developers/providers should still endeavour to provide the best possible API they can without damaging the service they provide.

[lurking]

This is my first time ever posting on a suggestion; just because this is a really good one. Hope it get implemented.

[Nutar]

This is my first time ever posting on a suggestion; just because this is a really good one. Hope it get implemented.

Thank you for your kind reply. I would love to see more interested members.

[Logically]

I'm half and half on this.

It easily cause lag unless Omni buts a very low limit on requests per second/minute.

[Camdog]

I really like this idea i also like your idea of the signature marketplace

[Vince]

Wouldn't you need to call upon the database to gather the information for this? If so, I doubt Omni would approve of it.

[Nutar]

Wouldn't you need to call upon the database to gather the information for this? If so, I doubt Omni would approve of it.

No. We can just request it through a page. That page will return the information we need in a jSON format.

[Dean Winchester‎]

I'm half and half on this.

It easily cause lag unless Omni buts a very low limit on requests per second/minute.

I didn't understand a word of that.
Edit: oh

Also this might be a good idea but I don't see it being accepted (any time soon) due to the work needed to be put into this.

[Nutar]

I'm half and half on this.

It easily cause lag unless Omni buts a very low limit on requests per second/minute.

Yes, that can be implemented. Good idea bro!

---

I didn't understand a word of that.

EDIT: It also could be used by other websites offering services for HF users.
Also this might be a good idea but I don't see it being accepted (any time soon) due to the work needed to be put into this.

Well, I don't mind paying $100 or more for this.

[V For Vendetta.]

I'm in support of this. Hopefully this gets implemented.

[Based Clam]

I like this idea, I could see omni taking interest as long as you did all the work, I can't imagine he would want to spend his time on this project when he is already busy with other aspects of HF.

[webdev77]

I honestly just don't see the need for this. I sell my signature frequently and it's plenty easy to have a user pay me and then they reply back with their sig code once they pay. I change my sig and wear it for the agreed period of time and all is good.

I understand why you think this may be useful, but I don't see myself using it.

[Nutar]

I honestly just don't see the need for this. I sell my signature frequently and it's plenty easy to have a user pay me and then they reply back with their sig code once they pay. I change my sig and wear it for the agreed period of time and all is good.

I understand why you think this may be useful, but I don't see myself using it.

Well, It could save the hassle of PMing. Also, It would be instant and safe. What makes it safe that the user will be paid at the end of every 24 hours.

[SIM-1676753]

I don't find a whole lot of use for this. I mean, what would you do with the API?

[Nutar]

I don't find a whole lot of use for this. I mean, what would you do with the API?

We could offer services related to HF which will actually help HF grow.