
Why Lobste.rs Is Better Than Hacker News - kevq
https://kevq.uk/why-lobste-rs-is-better-than-hacker-news/
======
solatic
And HN is arguably better for not being invite-only. There are so many
articles on HN where the top comment is by somebody with deep domain knowledge
who provides some kind of original insight that fits into the low length and
polish expectations of a comment, but would never have become a formal blog
post. Invite-only communities intentionally give up on that kind of discourse
for... what? Easier moderation?

~~~
just-juan-post
> There are so many articles on HN where the top comment is by somebody with
> deep domain knowledge who provides some kind of original insight that fits
> into the low length and polish expectations of a comment

This is now a myth. HN used to be like this but look for yourself, it's no
longer like this. It's no longer worth my time to dig for worthwhile nuggets
in the HN comments nor is it worth my time to post a high quality comment
because I know the only responses will be nitpicks and a few worthless
internet points.

PS: There's a vague rule about not criticizing HN that gets invoked fairly
often. Be prepared for this thread to be gassed.

EDIT: Dropped off the internet due to a DOS? Snort is fun. Hi dang and
friends!

~~~
stedaniels
I come across one of these kind of comments every other day. Some of my
favourites are from green accounts that registered just to share their
knowledge. So many of HN viewers aren't even registered, but when the urge
arrives to share, the low barrier for entry means they can. We all get
something from it.

------
preommr
> This has snowballed and now the community is full of experts in their fields

The front page is mostly dead. The most discussed thread has like 17 comments.
And a lot of those comments are uninteresting - e.g. "Hey, really nice post!".

I think it's more important to have a lot of users, with the occasional user
that has a deep expertise in one area rather than a small group of people that
are slightly better on average.

Honestly, there are probably plenty of small subreddits that have a higher
level of expertise. Places like /r/askhistorian have proven that it's possible
to have really good in-depth and insightful discussions if a modicum of
moderation is implemented. It's especially easy for topics related to a
profession and even more generalized, topics that aren't too inflammatory like
politics or religion.

------
slg
I think the invite only aspect of it can be a problem. The invitee needs to
get the invite from someone that they either know in real life or someone who
can vouch for them online.

The former isn't a great solution because it requires users to be linked to
their real identity by at least one person. Real identities have some
advantages, but requiring it bars a lot of good discussions that people don't
want linked to their real name. Allowing pseudonyms gives people freedom to
publicly say something they would traditionally only say privately or
sometimes not at all. If it is paired with strong moderation, like HN is, it
can prevent the greater internet fuckwad theory from going into effect which
is a common problem with anonymous communities.

If you have people inviting people that they don't know the real identity of,
the invite system isn't really adding anything beyond making it slightly more
complicated to join. I could understand a theory that a higher barrier to
entry means that only people with a high desire will join resulting in a
better community. It is possible that results in better discussion, but I'm
not sold because there are plenty of bad users like spammers and bots that are
also highly motivated.

~~~
Defenestresque
I have to disagree with the false dichotomy you are presenting wrt to the
invite system. Specifically, being forced to reveal your real identity to at
least one other user vs. "inviting people that they don't know the real
identity of" which you say means that "the invite system isn't really adding
anything beyond making it slightly more complicated to join."

There are many people online whose real identities I don't know whom I
consider thoughtful individuals more than capable of engaging in meaningful
and respectful discourse. I'd be happy to vouch for them in an invite-only
board.

~~~
slg
It is much easier to compartmentalize and hide things online when your true
identity is unknown. I have enough karma here on HN, that I am sure I could
get someone on Lobste.rs to vouch for me without personally knowing me. But
maybe my karma is only high here because I have a cabal of other accounts
upvoting me and the mods haven't caught on yet. Or maybe this is my one
authentic account and on Reddit I run a swarm of bots that hits /r/politics to
support my chosen presidential candidate.

Appearing to be a good user on one site doesn't guarantee that a person will
be a good user everywhere. Personally knowing someone and having that real
life connection to provide consequences is a much stronger deterrent to bad
behavior.

------
nathell
Tangential: I have recently had my articles featured on the front page of
Lobsters and HN within hours of each other. Not the same article, so it's not
an apples-to-apples comparison, but:

\- It's very hard for a HN post to get noticed. New posts linger in /newest
(frequented by relatively few people) for about half an hour before falling
down to the second page, and you need to be lucky enough to receive enough
upvotes in that timeframe to hit the front page. Lobsters' "success rate"
appears to be higher.

\- In terms of traffic, I got about 11K hits from unique IPs from HN and about
1.7K from Lobsters.

\- I like that Lobsters clearly indicates when a submission is authored by its
submitter.

Overall, as people have mentioned, both communities are great. I've been here
for 10+ years – thank you for everything, HN!

------
chromatin
I disagree [that it is "better"]. I am a wayward hacker in a non-tech field.
Don't know anyone from whom to obtain an invitation (to be clear, not
soliciting for one -- don't have time for another site/newsfeed), probably
even within 1-2 degrees of separation. I suppose they are perfectly happy
remaining small and low-traffic, so it works for them.

------
tluyben2
Why do we need to do this kind of comparison? They are both quite nice. I
think HN is better for what I look for (but r/programminglanguages and a few
others are even better) as there are just a lot of people here who actually
have experience with the topics discussed. PL experts, formal method experts,
cancer experts, etc everyone is ready to write quite a nice explanation for
nothing. The volume on Lobste.rs for some topics is just not large enough to
get an insightful convo going.

Also I notice a lot of Lobste.rs is a mix between my fav subreddits & HN. So
it's a circlejerk. But then again r/programmingcirclejerk is one of my
favorite subreddits anyway.

~~~
wenc
> The volume on Lobste.rs for some topics is just not large enough to get an
> insightful convo going.

I get that sense too. I looked at the titles of the links on Lobste.rs and
this is a purely subjective opinion, I feel the content appeals to a specific
demographic. I struggled to find a link there that would interest me (not that
my opinion matters terribly).

10-15 years ago, we experienced something similar with Slashdot and Kuro5hin.
Kuro supposedly had much higher quality content, but I couldn't help but feel
the site only appealed to certain kinds of people. I appreciate high quality
content yet could not bring myself to care about Kuro. (I'm sure many here
have the opposite experience, so I'd be interested in your counterpoints).

I very much believe in curation, but without volume, curation seems like pre-
mature optimization, it seems to me.

~~~
wink
Good point. I only ever heard positive things about kuro5hin, but I never
warmed up to it, no matter how hard I tried.

It's the same as some print newspapers. You know they are better than some
others, but all of their content is just too... dry? for you. And no, I don't
mean too high-level or non-boulevard. They just seem to have an air of
_something_ that doesn't suit you.

~~~
wenc
I once subscribed to a Canadian magazine called "The Walrus" \-- it was the
Canadian parallel to Harper's.

The articles were well-written, but the subject matters were... how to put
this... oh so boring. They were all these long-form articles about first-world
upper middle class white-bread issues that few people actually cared about
except for the insular literary classes.

I killed my subscription and subscribed to the Atlantic instead.

------
smoyer
The invite-only nature will only benefit the site while it's small. It will
either stay small or suffer the same users as other sites. The down-vote with
reason feature is nice.

~~~
nkelly31
I'll be interested to see how they leverage the user tree. I'm no expert in
social media bots, but it seems like the user invitation tree could be
important to identifying not just networks of bots that are generating low-
value content and trying to amplify certain viewpoints, but the people
inviting those bots into the network in the first place.

~~~
ColinWright
I think the point here is that if someone starts spouting rubbish, the person
who invited them loses "face" \- it reflects badly on them. So invitations
aren't hard to come by, provided you have a reasonable reputation for saying
things that are sensible.

This is a throwback to an early age when you would never talk to someone in
social circles without first being introduced. If someone turned out to be a
"bad sort" then the mutual acquaintance who had introduced you had proven
themselves not to be reliable, and so you don't trust any future introduction
from them. The scene in "Pride and Prejudice" where Mr Collins goes up to talk
to Mr Darcy without having been introduced is a classic example of breaking
these social norms, and the loss of reputation that ensues.

There is a lot of current research on "reputation" and "trust", and the
"invitation tree" is one very simple way to provide some of the benefits.

~~~
marcinzm
Doesn't that just cause a massive filter bubble effect?

~~~
ColinWright
That's the flip side, and part of the reason research on the question is
active, ongoing, and occasionally contentious. It's a choice to make, and a
mechanism to employ. One alternative is the HN model wherein everyone can
contribute and you have no idea of their experience, expertise, or
trustworthiness.

It's a choice, and it has consequences.

One thing I'd like to see added to HN is the ability for me to assign
trustworthiness scores to other users, and then filter based on that. There
are people here who I've come to know will provide value, even if their views
are unpalatable, and their karma is low. There are others who have reasonably
high karma, and yet who I know add little of value (for me!) to conversations.

Again, that would risk a filter-bubble, but it would reduce the number of
comments I need to wade through before getting to those of value -- all from
my personal view, of course, and your judgements would be different.

------
pseudoroot
I haven't tried lobste.rs. but I enjoy HN without tags (In fact I don't think
I'd use tags if HN brings this feature). I enjoy reading articles from
different domains (other than tech). And this variety is what keeps me engaged
to this platform.

------
davelacy
Is it better to limit access to limit access to only those you personally
know?

Sounds like a great way to limit exposure to differing thoughts, experiences,
and opinions.

If you’re only hearing from those in your friend circle, it’s just another
glorified chat room... nothing new here

~~~
dorian-graph
It’s not only those that you personally know. I was invited by a complete
stranger, for example.

~~~
davelacy
Ahh that does make it better but the same limitations still apply to some
degree... that’s just a byproduct of exclusivity

------
ddevault
I replied to the author on Mastodon earlier. Copypasta:

>huh, I totally disagree. The moderation on Lobsters is really self-interested
and fickle, and there's little done to protect any opinions which differ from
the mainstream. I've seen a lot of trolls and hateful threads go unmoderated
just because they agree with the party line. The platform also has a
censorship problem, in which they merge new posts into old posts even if
they're tangentally related - for example, if an article spreading
misinformation front pages on Lobsters, the rebuttal posted the next day will
be quickly merged into the original thread which, by then, is on the second
page and already passed through most Lobsters reader's purview.

>The HN mods go out of their way to try and make a community which is diverse
and representative of a broad set of viewpoints. Sometimes this goes too far
and allows really dissonant opinions to be surfaced, but on the whole I think
this approach is better.

I also agree that HN has its share of problems, though. Someone else pointed
out that HN has a problem wherein a small minority of users can flag posts out
of existence.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
I don't recall ever seeing "hateful" content go unmoderated. Do you have any
examples?

Also not sure what you mean with "protect opinions outside of the mainstream"?
What kind of opinions do you mean? And how should they be protected?

~~~
ddevault
The hateful comments are all passive aggression in my experience. I don't mean
anything anti-semitic content or anything along those lines of hate - I just
mean bad faith arguments, ad hominem attacks, etc.

As for non-mainstream, basically anything that the moderators don't agree
with. Could be about technology or politics. Anything which dissents from the
prevailing opinion of a comment thread is also at risk for being moderated.
They don't moderate the discussion, they moderate the topic.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
So a few passive-aggressive comments are "hateful"? I find this a really
strange way to put things, to put it mildly, especially considering that
overall, Lobsters does better than most of the internet which is often filled
with much more direct content.

I rarely see content moderated (the mod log is 100% public). Lobsters is much
more narrowly focused than HN, so off-topic stories tend to get removed.
That's ... a feature, not an attempt to "censor dissent". Honestly, if you
want to make these kind of strong accusations you should back them up.

The same applies to the "censorship by merging" claim from the parent comment.
Reasonable people can disagree on how to best merge stories etc, and that's
all fine, but claiming "mod censorship" is quite a strong accusation regarding
the motives of the mods.

------
ringzero
Ah, the what.cd strategy. Minus the exclusive content.

~~~
sondr3
Man, I miss what.cd, not just for the content but for the obsessive users they
had and the collections they made. Want all albums with a shoe as the cover?
They have a collection for that. Want good music to start a journey into
classical music in the 1800s? They have a collection for that. I mostly used
it to discover great music, and the void that what.cd left has yet to be
filled for me.

~~~
xenihn
There's a site that is basically oink 3. Don't forget that what itself was a
successor of oink. Not sure if it's against the rules to name it. It seems
much harder to get an invite to it than it was for the previous 2 though.

~~~
armitron
There are at least 3 sites that are continuations of oink/what.cd. Two of them
are good, one is improving..

~~~
ta999999171
Are you a member?

...hook me up? =]

------
ahuth
I'm interested to try out participating... but I cannot get an invite, despite
talking with folks in their irc, posting my homepage, some projects, github
profile, etc.

Meanwhile, other folks are coming into the channel and getting invites. That's
annoying...

~~~
ahuth
Maybe this is for the better, though. I totally understand why they'd want to
restrict membership and keep things focused and civil. But there is also
something that feels off about excluding people who are probably qualified to
be there.

Sort of like interviewing at tech companies, there may not be a good solution.
I imagine they're willing to put up with false negatives as long as false
positives are minimized.

And that does make sense. But being on the other end of it is weird.

------
kemonocode
While I do agree that having to give a solid reason before downvoting would be
a much welcome feature to HN, being invite-only makes it a non-starter, and it
only fosters elitism.

Sure, it'll always have a small, curated community, but you can be assured the
politeness will stay skin-deep before long and there simply won't be enough
differing points of view to allow insightful discussion of any kind. It's the
same issue I keep seeing time and time again in other closed communities (e.g.
invite-only Mastodon instances) where it ends up rotting them from the inside
out: they're too big to remain cohesive as just a group of friends, but too
small to receive any fresh air. I'd believe "cliques" would be the less polite
way to call them.

------
lightedman
"It’s invite only."

So it's a clique. I thought we grew past these after high school.

~~~
aleph-
How so, it's a method for dealing with spammers/marketers and the like who
would post low effort or off topic content regularly.

~~~
blocked_again
Its true that this system blocks spammers and marketers. At the same time it
also prevents a large amount of genuine users who want to take part in the
dicussions because its hard to get an invite. So overall the system does more
harm than good.

~~~
rrix2
There are like five people in this thread offering invites, it's not that
hard.

~~~
axaxs
So that renders the invite system about as useful as a captcha. What's the
point again?

~~~
rrix2
[https://lobste.rs/about#invitations](https://lobste.rs/about#invitations)

> Invitations are used as a mechanism for spam-control, to slow registrations
> to a pace we can acculturate and to encourage users to be nice, not to make
> the Lobsters userbase an elite club.

------
nathell
Comments on the same post on Lobsters:
[https://lobste.rs/s/bxuqzy/why_lobste_rs_is_better_than_hack...](https://lobste.rs/s/bxuqzy/why_lobste_rs_is_better_than_hacker_news)

------
orkon
One popular tech site in Russian was invite-only for a very long time:
[https://habr.com](https://habr.com) I remember you could get in by someone
inviting you or if you wrote a good guest post (there was a separate area for
this kind of guest posts and no one could see who the author is). I got
impression that invite-only system worked quite well as the site was known for
high-quality content and discussions.

~~~
zzzcpan
It's more like Medium, than Lobsters, HN or even Reddit. And while they
initially succeeded at attracting users with invite-only scarcity, they
utterly failed with negative reinforcement.

------
cf
If you want an invite, email me with your username or some other places where
you've commented and if you don't seem like an asshole I'll hook you up.

~~~
aarroyoc
Hey, I'm interested. I can't see your email and probably you can't see mine,
so if you think I'm not an asshole, could you send it to adrian D0T
arroyocalle AT gmail D0T com

~~~
cf
Oh crap I didn't realize it wasn't public in my posts. Hold on! Also you don't
seem to be an asshole! Invite sent!

~~~
aarroyoc
Thanks!

------
zitterbewegung
Look all social platforms (from blogs to news aggregators and networks)
continuously change. Not in the manner of the ship of Theseus but in the
concept that the people who use the platform determine what the site is all
about.

What eventually happens is that the people that have been there the longest
reminisce when the site was different and they actually preferred that kind of
content. But, the site has gone into a new direction.

------
unnouinceput
Invite only? Google in beginning was the same, hence why I never made a gmail
account and stayed on yahoo, which allowed me to easy move from it to
protonmail 15 years later. Also Facebook was the same, only students were
allowed in beginning, which meant I never made a Facebook account either.

------
laumars
The down-vote feature (for those who didn't read the article: you have to
provide feedback to down-vote) is something I've spent years saying HN badly
needs.

These days I just don't bother posting most of the time because while I
shouldn't be bothered by abuse of negative rep; you can't help be pissed off
when you've spent a short while including detail only for someone who doesn't
understand the subject or has a personal bias in the subject to react with a
knee-jerk down vote. It's not as bad when people reply because at least you
gain context into their point of view (even if you don't agree with them) but
it always felt, dare I say, "rude" to effectively fine a comment karma without
explaining why you've done so.

Also HN's model actively encourages burner accounts where people will say
something they know to be contentious with an anonymous account so they don't
burn their own karma. The problem with that is that can then sometimes lead to
trolling too. After all, why sensor your opinion if you're now a burner
account?

There used to be so much good content posted in the comments but the quality
seems to have diminished over the years and I honestly think that's in part
due to more people reaching the karma threshold for down-voting. The more
times a genuinely thoughtful or informative post gets a knee-jerk negative
vote, the less people will feel inclined to give up their time writing
thoughtful or informative comments.

~~~
o10449366
Downvoting isn't the problem - it's spam flagging. There's no better tool for
suppressing ideas and viewpoints you disagree with than flagging it. Only on
HN can a story occupy #1 on the front page due to overwhelming upvotes, and 30
seconds later be sunk to the depths of page 2 or 3 by a handful of flaggers
who disagree with the content that's presented.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Nah, you can do that on Reddit as well...

~~~
edgyquant
Reddit is a horrible place for discussion

------
mxuribe
I like the reasoning behind lobste.rs that was described. When it first came
out, i simply thought it was a clone of hacker news. Having read this post,
I'm intrigued. I've recently been spending more of my time on tildes.net (and
highly enjoying it!) rather than hacker news...So maybe I'll start focusing on
tildes.net and lobste.rs, instead of HN...hmmm.

------
xenihn
Lobste.rs has a better site and functionality, but HN has a better community
and much more activity/discussion. Though I want to note that having a better
community doesn't mean the people on HN are nicer or more educated. There's
just more users on this site, and thus more content overall, which means a
larger amount of good content.

I guess you could always read both.

------
system16
I personally don't see the appeal with Lobste.rs. Every time I see it
mentioned on here, I'll go back to take a look but I never see enough
interesting discussion or content to make me consistently return, or desire an
invite.

As a Reddit / Hacker News-alternative (or supplement), I've been far more
impressed by Tildes.

------
jasoneckert
Firstly, I like HN. I've been regularly visiting this site for over a year,
and I like the content and commentary.

And while I like the idea that anyone can join, it would be really nice to
limit the down vote for the same reasons outlined in other comments here.

Someone I work with put it bluntly when they said "Just post a polite but
witty reply to something on Hacker News and watch your points tumble like
corporate stock after a security breach."

------
pushcx
(I'm the Lobsters admin.)

I think "better" is too reductive a framing for comparing things as broad and
deep as online communities. There's no single dimension to judge quality on,
and it's largely a matter of personal taste. I appreciate the praise but this
post feels like a missed opportunity for a really valuable conversation about
how design features have shaped these two sites (to say nothing of the dozens
of others they draw inspiration from). In short:
[https://lobste.rs/s/bxuqzy/why_lobste_rs_is_better_than_hack...](https://lobste.rs/s/bxuqzy/why_lobste_rs_is_better_than_hacker_news#c_sj4hof)

Couple previous takes when we've been mentioned here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21453180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21453180)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21947299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21947299)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20892064](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20892064)

------
smitty1e
As with licences, I've got a "hand-wavy" opinion that the sum is greater than
the components.

Hacker News and Lobste.rs together is greater than either in isolation.

Some of the pummelings I've received on here have been justified rebukes of
jackassery.

A couple have seemed burnings at the stake for violations of orthodoxy. But
asbestos nickers are just what you wear.

------
iancmceachern
Anyone want to invite me?

~~~
tluyben2
Sure; just mail me (check profile).

~~~
drewmol
I emailed you as well.

\- not an asshole ;)

------
fareesh
So who is willing to invite me? I am nice

------
azhenley
One thing I noticed is that the search feature on there is far worse than
HN's. Doing a side by side comparison, I have to go to the 2nd or 3rd page on
Lobste.rs to get the results that I would have expected to be first.

~~~
rrix2
I'm curious what you use search for that often on a forum whose posting
activity is largely temporal. Are people using HN etc as an info repository?

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
> _Are people using HN, etc. as an info repository?_

One of the nice things about HN is that people with way more experience than
you in any given field make posts and comments about their work at times.
While generally not useful for specific step-by-step instructions, there are
good tips here and there that are at least worth considering, or alt
viewpoints that may be interesting to consider in the future.

------
nickpsecurity
Speaking on behalf of Lobsters, I'll repost my former comment about this site
when I explained it to Hacker News:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17873715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17873715)

Feedback from Lobsters, esp those that run the site and major contirbutors,
was mostly in agreement. Most responses preferred one or more of peaceful
coexistence, getting good from both, and/or cross-posting good
stories/comments to both communities. A seemingly-tiny group does hate HN or
SV, though. We're less about which is best so much as helping make the one(s)
we use the best.

On Lobsters, culture articles usually get more upvotes than downvotes. This
article on Lobsters got a _large_ number of downvotes at a higher-than-usual
ratio indicating they thought it doesn't represent Lobsters' vies and/or might
offend the HN community. That's despite kevq being a guy we like who writes
and submits lots of content that gets plenty of upvotes. Just throwing out
there for anyone on HN wandering if this was a group consensus or just kevq's
thing.

Speaking for _myself_ to address a few comments in this thread:

1\. Looks dead. It usually is on weekends. Check back Monday and Wednesday.
Always slower-moving, lower comments, and just more laid back, though.
Although niche, we're unusually strong in accessibility, formalmethods, plt,
and testing. Look at the tags:

[https://lobste.rs/tags](https://lobste.rs/tags)

2\. Politics, echo chambers, moderation, etc. The site itself is diverse. The
main preferences in voting are people that just want deep tech vs people that
want human side and/or political (most far-left-leaning). There's plenty in
between who submit links, drop in randomly, etc. These two are just most vocal
about preferences. If not haters or trolling, then moderators let visibility
be determined by votes w/ worst collapsed, not deleted. Deletes and bans are
rare with constructive criticism from community being most common.

3\. Experts. Lobsters comments has higher expert-to-non-expert ratio on a lot
of topics due to its model. HN's model and long history gives it a higher
volume of experts and expert comments. The two are also usually different even
on same article or topic. Reading both sites is best for maximizing expertise.

Dan, I appreciate the list you posted illustrating No 3 since I've needed that
on most of the occasions I've described HN's diverse array of experts to
people not on the site. Definitely passing it along.

