[dlisboa]

Lobste.rs. It's much more focused on tech/programming and the discussions there (although very few comments) often lead me to discovering new things.

Although that part of it also sucks a bit because you can't comment if you're not an invited member (which I'm not).

Many of the articles are found on HN first, but some are easier to see there because the front-page doesn't change as much as HN.

[h4waii]

Drop an email in your HN profile, I'm sure someone will send you an invite.

I find the quantity of comments on lobste.rs to be lacking compared to HN, they are much higher quality but there's not a lot of discussion for some reason.

[jart]

I think part of it is Lobsters has an "average karma per comment / post" feature which means Lobsters users usually don't post a lot of "wow!" or "thank you!" comments and instead prefer to speak up when they feel something substantive is meriting attention. I've posted threads there that were #1 for a day and got like two comments. I've seen other smaller threads I've posted explode with comments when, for instance, there was a weakness in my project's design. It makes Lobsters a hard crowd to please, although the important thing to understand is they actually still love you. The website design just has different incentives for discussion.

[jorvi]

> but there's not a lot of discussion for some reason

I mean... this is directly related to accounts being invite only.

It's a bit of a catch-22, the less friction to comment, the lower the quality but the higher the quantity.

Generally (let me preface: I do like HN as a whole) I dislike vote based or algorithmically driven discussion platforms. Vote based eventually ends up with the site having a certain inherent 'culture', and any comment not fitting in will at most get mildly upvoted and usually just ends up downvoted and collapsed / greyed out. Algorithmically driven, the engagement factor eventually just crowds out any other metric for valuing comments.

I like the setup of image boards (discussion boards?) the most. By default, everyone comments anonymously. Votes don't exist. There is no way to gain reputation points. Your post or comment stands on its own merit. Boring or (most) bait interaction get ignored whilst high quality interaction gets bumped to the front page more often. (Don't let 4Chan's two most infamous boards color your opinion for most other boards)

My personal perfect platform would be the imageboard way for content valuation and Reddit's old UI / UX.

[ShamelessC]

Funny to see a complaint about comment quality when your comment is effectively a restatement of what parent comment said.

Not trying to be rude of course, I do this myself occasionally (my editing skills are bad on mobile in particular), but to me it’s obvious that fewer comments increases the signal-to-noise ratio.

[mod]

I consider your critique of the comment entirely invalid, given that he didn't complain about quality, he complained about quantity.

He complimented the quality.

[ShamelessC]

Ah! See what I’m saying? Humans are poor commenters, can’t escape it.

[h4waii]

Indeed the irony is not lost on me, but main purpose was to get a way for invites to be sent those who want 'em.

[dlisboa]

Hmm, just did that, thanks. Been a while since I last saw my profile here, didn't realize I didn't have anything on it.

[SaulJLH]

Can I haz invite too, please?!?

[htk]

I would also welcome an invite to lobste.rs if anyone is able and willing to send me one. My contact is in my profile.

Thanks!

[thiht]

Just sent you one, enjoy!

[htk]

Excellent, thank you!

[1123581321]

Lobste.rs would probably further restrict invitations to protect against a flood of new users.

[waynesonfire]

artificial scarcity, classic marketing scheme. i'd move along.

[1123581321]

I know what you mean, but I think many of their users really would prefer the site be ignored by most of the Internet.

[amelius]

> Lobste.rs

Isn't that for Rust users only?

[slater]

Actually only for people currently living in Serbia.