Comment by shuzchen
12 years ago
I've always been hopeful that lobste.rs would take off, but sadly the steps they took to ensure good participation has kept it from growing. I mean, it still gets new articles, and there are a very few items that aren't on HN (or showed up sooner), but most posts have very little discussion. Looking at the homepage, and the majority of links have 0 comments.
That said, it's got a few features that people have pitched as the solution for HN (tags being one of them).
lobste.rs is invite only, isn't it? Do you think that's been their main problem, or are there others?
I ask because a forum project is on the back burner for me and this kind of thing is relevant to my interests.
Not only is it invite only but your own membership can be revoked if the people you invited cause problems (they keep track of the user tree https://lobste.rs/u, so your actions could also reflect badly on the person you got an invite from). The true reason could be something else (or many factors), but I suspect this is one decision that has kept the pool of users extremely small (1.1k isn't much for a social graph).
Huh. So basically it's like the mafia. You vouch for the wrong guy you get whacked.
I can see how that might stifle discussion.
Although... temporary guest accounts with joint karma might be an interesting idea.
The biggest issue with lobste.rs is that they hide some of the tag filtering features behind the invite-only membership. I can understand restricting the commenting and submission, but I have no desire to chase after an invitation just to get the tag filtering features.
I also think their invite-only membership policy puts them on a different community-growth curve than an HN, Reddit, Metafilter. I used to scan through the lobste.rs headlines, but i've switched back to a mixture of subreddits, because I can actually contribute more there.
Perhaps your issue with the tag filtering is from an older version? When I look at lobste.rs in an incognito window, it appears I can set tag filters even without an account (they claim "Since you are not logged in, your filters will be stored in a long-lasting browser cookie."). That said, it'd be awesome if they allowed access to that feature through a url you could bookmark.
The feature was added after I posted that comment. They are watching!
https://lobste.rs/s/wnqz13/tag_filtering_now_available_to_lo...
https://github.com/jcs/lobsters/commit/249dd85ec3e0d36f6d87d...