VisaWhen
Web and SaaS
visa backlog data site
SHOW HN2021
104points
26comments
#506of 2,533 in 2021
Top 20%of 2021 by points
How HN took it
LovedMost comments that take a side are positive
7 positive, 12 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 0 critical, out of 19 comments about the project. Thread score +0.29.
Idea: 4 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 againstExecution: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful, opens up opaque bureaucratic processes
From 3 comments
Pretty cool. I once drove from Victoria to Calgary and back to get a US tourist visa because Vancouver had a 30 day wait and Calgary had 3 days. I lucked out a drove there and…
RileyJames on HNThat’s super cool, very useful. I would be glad if instead there weren’t absurd delays.
jmercouris on HNThis site is awesome, thanks for sharing. Wish I had something like this a few years ago. The USCIS is nearly impossible to reach by phone, unless you memorize a very specific…
axaxs on HN
Neat data and architecture
From 2 comments
I downloaded your consulates.sqlite3 file and opened it up in https://datasette.io/ on my laptop - if you do the same (and run "datasette install datasette-vega" to get the…
simonw on HNThanks for sharing details about the architecture and infrastructure behind this. That's pretty neat.
whoisjuan on HN
Objections
Visa type list is unsorted and hard to scan
From 2 comments
Maybe alphabetize the list of visa types.
Evidlo on HNThat's not clear from that list. I was expecting to see it in alphabetical order, but then was confused that it wasn't. Good job on that site though!
uxcolumbo on HN
Requests
Sort visa types by popularity or add filtering
From 2 comments
Oh, sorry, I worded that comment confusingly. The list is not sorted at all yet. My intention was to later (this weekend?) get the numbers for visa type popularity and display…
underyx on HNProbably best to add some sorting filter then. Someone interested in waiting times is probably just interested to find their visa type they applied for quickly in a long list.…
uxcolumbo on HN
Add descriptions of visa type codes
From 1 comment
It would be cool when you select a consulate and then select the visa type, if next to the visa type was a brief description of the visa. For those who don't know what all these…
graton on HN
Compare consulates against averages
From 1 comment
Very cool. Might be interesting to add some stats on how a particular consulate compares to average of all backlogs and of those in the same country.
jcims on HN
Questions
Can scraping run in GitHub Actions
From 1 comment
Have you considered using GitHub Actions to automate the data scraping? A GitHub Actions workflow is allowed to run for up to 6 hours so even with the PDF processing you are…
simonw on HN
Alternatives named
visa.ooo
From 1 comment
Neat! I’ve built a little site on some similar US visa data, https://visa.ooo
lgats on HN