in the previous commit, in a before block, i was stubbing HTTParty.post, because i wanted to be sure that no actual HTTP requests were being made. this had an unfortunate side effect of HTTParty.post always returning `nil`, even if in an indiviudal test, i had an expect().to receive().and_return() assertion set up. i solved this by removing the before block, as i don't think it's necessary to prevent HTTP requests from being made. @cromulus, could you confirm?
in the previous commit, in a before block, i was stubbing HTTParty.post, because i wanted to be sure that no actual HTTP requests were being made. this had an unfortunate side effect of HTTParty.post always returning `nil`, even if in an indiviudal test, i had an expect().to receive().and_return() assertion set up. i solved this by removing the before block, as i don't think it's necessary to prevent HTTP requests from being made. @cromulus, could you confirm?

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