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Lobsters

lobste.rs

I think I first found out about the site in 2015. It look me 2 1/2 years to get an invite, and I visited it every day, and frequently contributed links. I belive at some point I was among the top 10 users, but I was kicked out because the main admin had some grudge against me, so when I wrote a controversial comment he banned me. Fair enough, his site. Retroactively I think this was for the better, as the climate was getting worse and worse. I have met some of the most dishonest people on that site and had some of the most frustrating discussions I can recall. In this respect, HN is preferable. What is sad is that I don't think this was always the case, and is it Lobste.rs that deteriorated over time. There was a long thread on this last year: https://lobste.rs/s/zp4ofg/lobster_burntsushi_has_left_site.

When I was banned, I sent a message to the administrators whether I could get a machine readable file of all my comments. I thought to myself, if I had already spent all that time commenting, I might as well repost them on my own site. But the administrators all refused to even discuss this with me. I sent them SQL queries and everything, but they didn't even regard me worthy of a response. This was very disappointing and unprofessional.

So what I want to say to the sibling comments who are looking for invites, consider it twice. There are annoying people everywhere, and I haven't found a website format that can prevent these from popping up.

I don't think this is the place to air out all the dirty laundry from the past two years, so I'll just say this: since the time I've joined the site (three years ago), I haven't seen a single ban that wasn't warranted, be it due to a single incident of flouting the site rules or a pattern of behavior.

It is true that the moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here (such as abusing flags to down vote), but I don't see that as a necessarily bad thing.

Regarding the thread you linked, I'll agree it was the admin's fault for writing the passive-aggressive banner that led to that (well-respected) user leaving.

My account on Lobsters is in good standing, but I agree with daptaq. The site has a very strong bias. You either agree with the very online culture of the site or you get mercilessly jeered in the comments (and potentially have the admin coming for you.) At this point all I do is post meek comments every few months or so because I don't trust the admin or, mostly, the members of the site, to respect me. The comments on the site have become predictable enough to be GPT generated.

A bit ago, we got to see the "joys" of having users comment on and upvote a comment that justified pogroms because "the West keeps peddling anti-Soviet propoganda because they hate communists." The comment thread was killed but only after lots of upvotes, way too many to make me comfortable to stay on the site. If you're okay with that sort of thing then Lobsters is your site, but I'm not. Honestly I don't know why I'm still there.

> the site rules or a pattern of behavior

> moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here

Can you please provide a link to the "site rules", i.e. a list similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? I wasn't able to find one.

https://lobste.rs/about covers what's on topic

The moderation log is public:

https://lobste.rs/moderations?moderator=%28All%29&what%5Bsto...

Thanks, I know the links. But I was looking for stated rules which apply to what the fellow commented above: "the moderators are fairly strict regarding behavior that wouldn't be punished here (such as abusing flags to down vote)"

> since the time I've joined the site (three years ago), I haven't seen a single ban that wasn't warranted, be it due to a single incident of flouting the site rules or a pattern of behavior.

That is hard to say, if you were to look up my final thread, all my comments were deleted, and you have no way of evaluating if the judgement was fair or not. I held the same position, assuming the moderation team was doing a good job until the hammer hit me.

> Regarding the thread you linked, I'll agree it was the admin's fault for writing the passive-aggressive banner that led to that (well-respected) user leaving.

That is what I am getting at. He has "joked"[0] that the job of moderation is stressful, and it is known that he has other problems[1] that aren't making the job easier for him. I believe that this shapes his moderation style, and not for the better. He errs on the side of over-moderation, which was exactly one of the faults HN hat, that motivated the creation of that site.

[0] https://lobste.rs/s/mox75k/2021_mod_applications#c_ad4hj0 [1] https://lobste.rs/s/ugprwi/what_does_it_take_get_new_tag_acc...

I like reading this site, because it has a few good commenters, and it’s focused on tech and programming, whereas the front page of HN sometimes looks completely dominated by politics and culture topics. It isn’t perfect, but it’s quite good.

A previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146746

Also, heads up, they tend to have fairly low opinions about HN’s moderation system when brought up. Just let it slide.

I like this site and would like a login, but apparently I hang in the wrong circles because nobody I know is a member. Any tips on where I might be able to meet someone who can vouch for me?

The lobsters IRC

Thanks. Oddly enough I never noticed the 'chat' link before which has the details.

https://lobste.rs/chat

UPDATE: Actually I don't see it on the home page, so maybe not so odd I never saw it. I found it this time via Google.

I like lobste.rs because they have a lot more technical links than HN. Have not interacted with the community much though.

Something tells me Benediktbroich could send me an invite link...

Seems like a much more dev centric community.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com