API limits during SXSW

[Marco Kaiser]

Hi Alex,

as SXSW will start tomorrow: any updates on the limitations that will be in effect? Will it be the announced 50 req/hour API limit?

Thanks,
Marco

[Alex Payne]

I was going to let the list know later today, but here's the official word:

We're setting things up in such a way that we can degrade our service
if (and only if) necessary. So, rate limits will continue as normal
until things get rough, at which point we'll flip the switch and let
you all know via this list, the api_updates Twitter user, etc. We've
added a number of new machines and some performance improvements to
our cluster, and we're hopeful but ready for this weekend.

As for abuse, we're not doing anything automated at this time. What
we are doing is generated specialized abuse reports on an hourly basis
and taking action against any malicious IPs. For example, we've seen
26,297 requests from 208.113.160.21 (silk.dreamhost.com) in the last
hour alone, and that's up from the last several hours. So, we're
banning that IP.

Our abuse policy for the time being is basically this: if you exceed
10,000 requests from your IP and you're not a large-scale service in
good standing with Twitter, Inc., you will be banned. Fortunately, it
doesn't seem like anybody but the above IP is in this circumstance
presently.

Is there anything else I can clarify?

--
Alex Payne
http://twitter.com/al3x

[Marco Kaiser]

Thanks Alex, that's good news.

Just being curious: 10.000 requests in which time frame? per hour? that's quite few...

[Alex Payne]

Yes, I'm saying that we're not even going to consider blocking an IP
until they exceed 10,000 requests per hour. Google crawls us more
frequently than that in some hour periods.