Brightkite 2.0: Web: Odd error message is appearing from “People” searches done while not signed in

Date: 11/04/09

Description:

This is strange. On Brightkite web today, I got this bizarre error message five times in a row after I did a “People” search while not signed in.

I ran a people search of a word, followed by a single press of the space bar. An error message kept appearing.

I got this several times. Then I went back, tried it again, with both “Places” and “Posts”, and I did not get it to repro.

Went back, tried it one last time, and it happened again.

Repro Steps:
1. (log out of account – clear cache, etc.) Navigate to www.brightkite.com
2. From the Brightkite.com home page, move mouse to the input box in upper right
3. Select “People” from the drop down list
4. Click inside of the box
5. Enter in any name
6. REQURIED: Enter a single press of the <spacebar> button after entering name, press <enter>

Result: While not signed into an account, if the user enters in text – followed by a press of the <spacebar> button – on the home page, an odd error message occasionally appears

Expected: No odd error message after "People" searches while not signed in

NOTE: This is the text of the error message:

Search People

You can search for people that fulfill a variety of criteria by passing parameters to the following URL:

http://brightkite.com/people.[ xml | json | plist ]

Parameters:
gender - limit results to this gender, valid options are male, female (optional)
age_from - starting age in years, use in conjunction with age_to, e.g. 23 (optional)
age_to - ending age in years, use in conjunction with age_from, e.g. 55 (optional)
age_to - ending age in years, use in conjunction with age_from, e.g. 55 (optional)
name - text search on name, e.g. Martin (optional)
tags - text search on tags, e.g. hockey (optional)
q - text search on both tags and name (optional)
with_photo - only return people who have an avatar photo, boolean (optional)
person_id - limit results to people that person_id has a certain relationship with, use in conjunction with who (optional)
who - limit results to people that person_id has a certain relationship with, valid options are friends, fans, blocked (optional)
place_id - Brightkite place ID, use either standalone or in conjunction with radius (optional)
latitude - latitude, use in conjunction with longitude and radius (optional)
longitude - longitude, use in conjunction with latitude and radius (optional)
sw_lat - geographical bounding box, SW corner latitude, use in conjunction with other bounding box inputs (optional)
sw_lng - geographical bounding box, SW corner longitude, use in conjunction with other bounding box inputs (optional)
ne_lat - geographical bounding box, NE corner latitude, use in conjunction with other bounding box inputs (optional)
ne_lng - geographical bounding box, NE corner longitude, use in conjunction with other bounding box inputs (optional)
since - only list users who have updated their location since this RFC822 timestamp (optional)
since_ts - only list users who have updated their location since this UNIX timestamp (optional)
hours_ago - only list users who have updated their location in the last X hours, e.g. 5 (optional)
offset - list results starting at a certain offset, used for pagination, e.g. 10 (optional)
limit - return up to X results, used for pagination, maximum is 100, e.g. 30 (optional)
Example Call:
Example Result:
</spacebar></enter></spacebar>