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I would like to use the Stack Exchange API for the purpose of academic research. Now, standard users are limited to 300 requests per day. For increasing this limit to 10,000 per day, users need to sign up for an app key.

My problem is that when trying to sign up for an app key, there are some questions that I do not know how to answer, because they seem to pertain to users who have an app, which I don't. I just want to get the data and work with it.

Here is what I mean: the sign up form asks for the Application Name, Description, OAuth Domain and Application Website. I have none of those. I suppose I am not the first one with this problem. Any advice?

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Since you're not using OAuth the value of these fields is not terribly important – without users no users will ever see them, and the API registration seems to be granted automatically without human review.

I'd point the Application Website field to a page of your project, working group, or institute. The OAuth Domain should still point to a domain under your or your institute's control.

Note that while the API is useful for accessing live data and performing actions on behalf of users, for research of historical data querying the data dumps on SEDE might be more powerful.

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    Thanks @amon, this is helpful. Now what I am still confused about is how I should choose between using the SEDE and the data dump. For cleanliness, I asked this in a separate question here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/301214/…
    – splinter
    Sep 22, 2017 at 11:49
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they seem to pertain to users who have an app

Yes without having a SE app (or an idea), why you need the key then?

Name The name of your application. If that is an idea you're going to implement, don't worry decide a name for that.

Description What your app will do part

Oauth domain Where SE want to redirect the user after authorization. you can give the home page itself if you want. It will contain an Object in response. You have to get particular details from it inorder to interact the user with SE.

Application website just give some link. A blank page is ok too.

Application icon if you want to show an icon to the app, upload it to imgur and add the link here.

Note

You can edit some details after submitting at the url

https://stackapps.com/apps/oauth/edit/{{YOUR_APP_#}}
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  • I would need it because I want to obtain data faster, in the sense of more requests per day. But I don't have app. Rather, I want to analyze the data after obtaining it.
    – splinter
    Sep 22, 2017 at 11:47
  • What is the app's name or site's name you are using the api for?
    – Optimus Prime
    Sep 22, 2017 at 11:56

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