Hotline Webring

February 7, 2026 · View on GitHub

A webring for personal sites.

For more on what exactly this is and how to join the webring, please visit the homepage.

Getting Started

Set up the repo:

$ ./bin/setup

Run the app using Heroku Local:

$ heroku local

Run the specs:

$ bin/rake spec

Use Redirection#unlink:

irb> redirection = Redirection.find_by(slug: "whatever")
irb> redirection.unlink

This will destroy the Redirection and re-link its ring neighbors, sealing the breach.

When blocking a URL, specify the bare URL, without http or www subdomain.

To block everything from evil.com but none of its subdomains:

BlockedReferrer.create!(host_with_path: "evil.com")

To block everything under the /one/ directory (evil.com/one/*), but not the root (for example, to block a user directory):

BlockedReferrer.create!(host_with_path: "good.com/~evil")

To block a subdomain:

BlockedReferrer.create!(host_with_path: "evil.good.com")

This helps when we're experiencing a flood of spam.

To prevent creation, set DISALLOW_CREATING_NEW_REDIRECTIONS to anything on Heroku:

production config:set DISALLOW_CREATING_NEW_REDIRECTIONS=1

To allow creating new redirections again, unset the variable:

production config:unset DISALLOW_CREATING_NEW_REDIRECTIONS

We have an API, oddly enough. It's used by our Slack bot, and we don't expect (or allow) anyone else to use it.

Use the following guides for getting things done, programming well, and programming in style.