About Lobsters
Lobsters is a computing-focused community that aggregates and discusses links related to technology, programming, and software development. Launched in 2012, it emphasizes high-quality content, transparency, and a welcoming environment for developers. Features include a robust tagging system, an invitation-based registration process, and a strong commitment to open discussion and community moderation.
FAQ
The quickest way to receive an invitation is to talk to someone you recognize from the site. If you wrote a link that was posted, please reach out in chat. If you can't find anyone you know in the invitation tree, consider getting to know the community in the chat room.
Links should be focused on computing and should improve the reader's next program, deepen their understanding of their last program, or be more interesting in five or ten years. Off-topic content like entrepreneurship, management, and personal productivity systems should not be submitted.
The tagging system allows users to categorize and filter submissions. Tags represent what most users want to read, and stories can be tagged with multiple tags to promote discussion across different topics. Users can filter out or subscribe to specific tags.
Less than 1% of stories or comments get flagged. Users are not automatically punished by flags, but those whose content is frequently flagged are encouraged to talk to moderators about what's not working. Flagging requires selecting from a preset list of reasons like 'Off-topic,' 'Me-too,' or 'Spam.'
Self-promotion is allowed but should be less than a quarter of one's stories and comments. Exploiting Lobsters as a write-only tool for product announcements or driving traffic to your work is not encouraged.
All moderator actions are visible to everyone, and the identities of moderators are public. There is no shadow banning or secret moderation actions. Banned users are given notice of their banning, and their disabled profiles indicate which moderator banned them and why.
Lobsters offers story merging to collect comments on a topic, story hiding to remove individual stories, and a responsive design for smaller screens. Users can also enable mailing list mode to receive new stories and comments as emails.
All story and comment ranking comes from user activity. All users have equal votes, and moderators have no ability to raise or lower rankings. Per-tag hotness modifiers affect all stories with those tags, and these modifiers are public.
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