Why should I put my website to sleep?

https://www.nightnight.xn--q9jyb4c/details

by tobr • 5 years ago

96 91 5 years ago

neckardt• 5 years ago

Unfortunately I use Firefox with privacy.resistFingerprinting set to true. This disables leaking time zone information, so when javascript tries to query the time of day it gets a time 7 hours ahead of my actual time zone.

In other words, this function would break websites for me, the demo thinks it's night even though I haven't even had dinner yet.

hexane360• 5 years ago

I love resistFingerprinting, but I really wish it had a whitelist for certain data on certain sites. Maybe I want my calendar app to know what time zone I'm in!

captn3m0• 5 years ago

+1. I don’t like being all or nothing.

I want to disable Timezone and System Theme anti-fingerprinting but FF gives no option.

throwawayfb996• 5 years ago

I think the demo always thinks it's night though, by design, because that's the demo.

atatatat2• 5 years ago

...the same way?

Each time?

In an almost...fingerprintly unique fashion?

npteljes2• 5 years ago

All Firefoxes report UTC when that's turned on, so it's not that unique.

paxys• 5 years ago

Trying to define or prescribe a standard sleep schedule for everyone is pointless. There are people sleeping 9pm-5am and others 2am-10am, sometimes in the same household. Some people sleep fewer hours at night and take naps during the day. No single habit is "correct".

Semi-related – I have had so many frustrating experiences with government websites which only operate during business hours.

alphachloride• 5 years ago

Interesting how a non-latin Top Level Domain renders in the address bar(.みんな) vs how the author writes it in the <script> tag in his article (.xn--q9jyb4c).

tW4r• 5 years ago

You can even have emojis in your domain using the same technique https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode

dillondoyle• 5 years ago

I was going to ask about that domain because when I looked into it ICANN doesn't allow unicode/emoji gTLDs? Which seems to discriminate against non latin languages?

http://domainincite.com/18035-why-you-cant-register-emojis-i...

CydeWeys2• 5 years ago

ICANN does allow non-Latin TLDs. The very link under discussion in this comments section uses one.

Emojis are something else though.

ChrisArchitect5• 5 years ago

this is common, just how the unicode vs text writing everywhere as a fallback since unicode not always available as much as it is now

CydeWeys2• 5 years ago

Yeah that's punycode. The UTF8 version of it doesn't work in all contexts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode

deergomoo• 5 years ago

It’s pretty condescending to be told to go to sleep by a website. It’s 22:44.

itisit2• 5 years ago

Seriously. Many of us access sites when we can, not necessarily when we want. I know there's a bypass feature, but being greeted by this kind of nannying reminder can come across as annoying, at the least, to a certain nocturnal group of folks (ex. hospital staff, parents of newborns, security guards, etc.).

geoah• 5 years ago

I don't think this is meant for such sites but I can def see a benefit for social, news, or other "addictive" sites that might be detrimental to people's mental health.

IOS, Android, and at least Macos have the ability to help users restrict the time they spend on an application, but doing so on the web is not as simple. In chrome I'm using "Intention" which is a nice extension that does something similar but for only the sites I've added to a list.

As long as the site has a way to allow me to still browse the site or even give me 15m more or something and then fade to black again I'd welcome this from many sites.

simonblack2• 5 years ago

Bedtime? Where in the world is it bedtime at this moment?

This policy is only workable if your country uses a little-used language and takes up only a single timezone.

Dumb idea. Unnecessary complexity in a website.

solox3• 5 years ago

The script uses the device time.

dheera4• 5 years ago

That doesn't work well for me because I use UTC as my device time regardless of where I am in the world.

IP geolocation isn't a good idea either because I often access pages through a VPN in another timezone.

In short, nice thought but no thanks.

sneak• 5 years ago

The page mentions it uses the local clock/time zone in the browser viewing the page.

simonblack2• 5 years ago

Why would you go to the bother of producing a website and then shut other people out of it just because you're asleep. Even worse is assuming that because it's their bedtime, they have no right to think they can use the website.

So many assumptions. It reminds me of my ethnic mother's command, "I'm cold. Go and put a jumper on."

jorgesborges• 5 years ago

Aside from being instructed to sleep, which is a little juvenile, there’s something charming about the idea of a website being “closed” for the day. It has the feel of a living, dynamic thing. Definitely not suitable for all types of websites but it’s a neat idea for personal a page. I don’t think I’d ever use a third-party to implement something like this either.

I like the clean margins and typography there.

simon1573• 5 years ago

Up until recently the Swedish tax office only permitted you to login during extended office hours.

542458• 5 years ago

The B&H photo video website won’t accept orders or payments during Shabbat and most Jewish holidays (except for Hanukkah).

uyt• 5 years ago

A lot of government websites are Monday to Friday only. I like to joke that they don't even have one 9 of availability.

(e.g., https://www.irs.gov/payments/view-your-tax-account see the "Hours of availability" section)

viraptor• 5 years ago

You scared me with the Mon-Fri, but actually irs is mon (morning)--sat (night) and sun (morning)--mon (unless maintenance happens). Which sounds fairly reasonable.

Zak3• 5 years ago

Are you aware of a justification for this?

jetpackjoe• 5 years ago

B&H is a Jewish electronics store here in NY. From sundown Friday until sundown Saturday you can't place any orders on their site, (though you can still window shop).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com

unicornporn• 5 years ago

And here's my most awesome example: https://gossips.cafe/

(Click/tap the cup in the lower right corner if you visit outside opening hours) :-)

Zababa2• 5 years ago

I agree, I'd like it better if it was something like "this website it asleep" while keeping a way to access it. Maybe something like "take a peek", because I wouldn't want to make people feel bad for "waking up" the website.

Qub3d• 5 years ago

Its open source! Seems like a very simple change, If you are interested I could make a fork. And there is a link to bypass it in the current version, just not with the wording you suggested.

crooked-v• 5 years ago

while keeping a way to access it

There is one.

Jiocus• 5 years ago

I wouldn't want to make people feel bad for "waking up" the website.

Great take on user interaction and design.

If someone feels this idea seem far-fetched, think about how applications or sites make you feel when it belittles you for mistakes made in an input, dropp all your progress because you followed the misplaced button, or use the ‘cute but sad animated animal mascot’-dark pattern when you want to cancel an account.

Zababa2• 5 years ago

As some replies pointed, "while keeping a way to access it" should be "while keeping _the_ way to access it".

duxup3• 5 years ago

The unemployment office website for my state is (or was a few years ago) closed outside business hours.

Baeocystin• 5 years ago

I really, really dislike the 'for your own good' impetus that seems to be a common current design trend.

We're already dealing with information-density loss and the Fisher-Pricification of the GUI, and maybe this is the next step in overwrought 'we know what you want to do better than you'.

I have no ire for the creator of this. But respect boundaries, people. You are not your user's parents.

dheera4• 5 years ago

Exactly.

This page which uses device time doesn't work well for me because I use UTC as my device time regardless of where I am in the world.

IP geolocation isn't a good idea either because I often access pages through a VPN in another timezone.

In short, nice thought but no thanks.

Also, great way to get your page downranked if a search engine comes prowling around your website at night.

enneff2• 5 years ago

You’re probably one of about 100 people in the world who set their device time to UTC. I don’t think it’s reasonable for any designer to cater for this use case.

zestyping• 5 years ago

Hi there! I also set my laptop and wristwatch time to UTC. I wonder how many people actually do this.

duxup3• 5 years ago

What is the value of always setting it to UTC ?

bowmessage• 5 years ago

It’s early… Nothing we can offer you is more important than your health. Eat well, run some laps, and we will catch you in the afternoon. This site will be usable after 100 push ups.

phinnaeus• 5 years ago

This site will be usable after 100 push ups.

Only if you have some advanced accessibility features that lets me use the site without my arms, which are now completely limp.

enneff2• 5 years ago

Honestly, I’ll take designers thinking about the well-being of their users, even if it comes across as condescending. The common alternative is to wring as much attention out of the user as possible, pushing their buttons so they keep using the app until every last drop of dopamine has been exploited.

jedimastert• 5 years ago

At the same time, if you gear your website's performance towards engagement (e.g. I'd like people to read a bunch of stuff, stay for a while), you may feel an obligation to limit the effect your website has on someone's normal functions.

Take Hacker News, for example. This is not a site that maliciously steals attention for the gain of the owners. It still has the capacity to be a solid time sink. If the admins felt so inclined (and I'm very much not insisting they should), they could say "this could cause harm. Maybe we mitigate that harm by putting an extra barrier?"

And they actually do! Check out "noprocrast". Admittedly this is opt-in instead of opt-out, but websites (and even businesses in general) can sometimes take into account the wellbeing of customers over what measure of "efficiency" they may have.

fyrabanks• 5 years ago

A really interesting hack I do, personally, is to stop reading Reddit when it’s time to go to sleep—-or even just be productive while awake!

It’s not quite the same as when Mommy tucks me into bed and turns the lights off, but I still find it helpful.

duxup3• 5 years ago

They're not your parents, but it is their site.

edoceo• 5 years ago

This isn't a new trick. Some US Gov sites have hours of operation. From memory the IRS has one, and recently I noticed one of the gov sites for LA had "hours" for some parts, so I could only do forms when they were open.

chrismorgan• 5 years ago

A remark for JavaScript developers: for injecting its content into the body, this script creates a dummy div (it has no attributes and is targeted by no styles), sets its innerHTML, then appends it to the body. That dummy div is actually unnecessary: Element.insertAdjacentHTML lets you achieve the same effect without it:

  document.body.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', '<div class="nightnight">…</div>');

Browser support is universal. (Firefox was last to the game, getting it in Firefox 8, 9½ years ago. IE introduced it, in version 4.)

I have more remarks I could make, but I’ll leave it at that one. It’s the most interesting.

sushid• 5 years ago

What are some other remarks? Please do tell!

throwaddzuzxd• 5 years ago

Interesting, I've never heard of insertAdjacentHTML before. Thank you for sharing :)

ShakataGaNai• 5 years ago

No. Just no.

Don't make assumptions about your users. Maybe it's important to them. Maybe they have insomnia. Maybe they are staying up late. Maybe they work early/late in concert with someone elsewhere in the world. Maybe they're sleep schedule is different from yours

Or maybe they just work the night shift.

sodality2• 5 years ago

There is a "I’ll sleep later, I really need to use this site right now →" button, by the way.

me_me_me• 5 years ago

I'll give you an advice I wish I learnt earlier in my life.

Don't think how something does not work, how it will be broken from the get go. Don't come up with negative use cases - its easy.

Do the opposite, its much. much harder. But as the result you can arrive at new ideas (be it business or art). After and only then you can work on workaround for the negatives.

new299• 5 years ago

I’m a bit confused by the name, what’s the Japan connection?

The developer seems to be called Masamichi Souzou (正道想像) but doesn’t seem to have any connection to Japan? Is there something I’ve missed? Just seems odd to me.

krisroadruck2• 5 years ago

Culture fetishization.

danellis• 5 years ago

What's the difference between appreciating something and fetishizing it?

tkiolp4• 5 years ago

I thought that the webserver would be actually in sleep mode, like a laptop. That would be interesting though.

busymom0• 5 years ago

That won’t work as visitors from many other time zones still need to see it.

Breefield• 5 years ago

No!

dimva• 5 years ago

If anyone is motivated to do this for some weird reason, please self-host the code instead of exposing your users to potential hacking.

jokocide• 5 years ago

This is dumb. If any site does this to me I'll immediately move to a competitor or just stop using it entirely.

lainga• 5 years ago

Compare to HN's sentiment the last time this was posted!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11777562

dang• 5 years ago

Those comments don't look organic to me, and the vote data seems to confirm that. So while it was someone's sentiment, I doubt it was HN's.

rozab• 5 years ago

Apparently the DVLA got this memo. They've disabled all their web forms outside of working hours.

chapium• 5 years ago

This should be opt-in.

RicoElectrico• 5 years ago

This kind of reminds me of the Wojciech Cejrowski's (Polish TV and YT personality who gradually turned far-right) online shop that is closed on Sunday due to religious reasons [1][2]

[1] https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/34034367/wchodze-na-strone-cejrows...

[2] https://buzz.gazeta.pl/buzz/7,156947,11419434,zakupy-w-niedz...

imgabe• 5 years ago

Websites can be accessed from anywhere in the world. You don't know that it's nighttime where your users are. I guess you could use geolocation and figure it out, but that is an awful lot of trouble to go to just annoy your users.

not2b• 5 years ago

Some people work the night shift and sleep during the day. Others have odd schedules. Just don't do this. It's paternalistic, ill-advised, and not helpful.

kirykl• 5 years ago

This would work much better as a configurable browser extension

ntht8• 5 years ago

Are they implying that みんな is pronounced similar to night night? I don't think it is... is it?!

guavaNinja• 5 years ago

I think it means "everyone". Read it as "night night, everyone"

donio• 5 years ago

Thanks for deciding what's good for me!

ChrisArchitect5• 5 years ago

(2016)

ChrisArchitect5• 5 years ago

some old discussion about this concept/site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11794024

ChrisArchitect5• 5 years ago

Jennifer Garner reading Go the F*k to Sleep was the suggested promotional video for this on PH back in 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U08XWOx3XYM

tengbretson• 5 years ago

1984 part 1 chapter 3

ChrisArchitect5• 5 years ago

Saw someone propose recently shutting off twitter_com for a bunch of days, or a few weeks, to give the entire globe a break. Now this from 2016 resurfaced. Maybe it has a better fit in today's world.

Why should I put my website to sleep?

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