Invitation-only is the future of online communities. Lobsters still has a pulse because you need to know someone to get in and it’s a bad look if you invite annoying people.
I wish lobste.rs would be a tiny bit easier to get access to. Some of my blog posts have been discussed there and every time I try to get access, I can’t get past their IRC stuff.
You should overlay a banner on your blog when they send you an HTTP Referer explaining their nonsense. Maybe then they'll get the message.
Then again, maybe they like the ability to critique your posts without you being able to rebut their opinions. It's an effective tactic in online echo chambers.
Well, lobste.rs requires an email to invite a user. If you had one on your profile, or on your github, or on your website I would have done it as a drive-by since your site is interesting and pretty lobste.rs-y content.
FWIW, you might want to consider publishing your e-mail address in your HN profile or on your website. Otherwise it’s hard for people to get in touch with you.
I've been waiting for my lobste.rs invite for years. I joined the IRC for a few days, but being in Australia, rarely saw too much activity. I could chase someone down for an invite, but at that point I just don't care that much.
I was given my invite from a decent person who, I believe, basically has an "open door" policy. I'm happy to pay it forward and give you an invite if you want it. abetusk@mechaelephant.com
That's nonsense wrt invitation-only being the future. I can equally say that free speech is the future. For comparison, Reddit does very well without being invitation only.
It's also not open access. You have to run an invisible tightrope so its algorithms won't automatically shadowban you and then you have to run a barely visible tightrope to get enough karma to not have your posts automatically removed from every subreddit.
> Invitation-only is the future of online communities.
This feels antithetical/dystopian/elitist compared to what online communities are, for me. I think it's ok for some communities to be like this, but I don't think it's the future of online communities.
I think some are fine, but if I had to choose one I'd choose open access, so I think it's the more important of the two. And in fact it's because the web is open, "no permission needed" by default that allows elitist groups to exist on the web. So I don't think I see it as a mistake. The alternative would be... You can only create a website if you're invited to the internet by someone who already has access? You have to get approval for your website from some authority before it goes public? Those were all potential futures we imo thankfully and carefully avoided!
That's actually how it already works, but there are large commercial access providers known as "ISPs". Before there were ISPs, you literally could only get on the internet with a direct connection to someone on the internet, usually a large university.
>Those were all potential futures we imo thankfully and carefully avoided!
I am not so thankful. But it is coming from my view of the current world.
I think open Internet for business is good. But open Internet for communication was bad. I cannot think of one good thing that have resulted from an open internet for communication/discussions. It has turned out to result in a collective, perpetual state of seizure for all humanity.
I am someone who had to learn stuff from random encounters with books in the 90s. Even then, I would not have it any other way...
This is called the Eternal September problem, after the influx of fresh users to Usenet at the start of every school year, being extended indefinitely as AOL brought new users continually to Usenet.
Isn't this how alot of discord works? maybe the communities are leniant with inviting but it still happens. A group chat is basically invite only too and that's pretty popular for communication.
I think we need to remove dystopian and elitist from the dictionary because at this point you can't breathe without being accused of it.
Deciding who is in or out is the fundamental basis of any community, that's freedom of association. That's what defines a community. A place anyone can enter is a train station bathroom and that's what the logical terminus of the open internet seems to be.
I think scopes/criteria/boundaries on communities are fine, I disagree that invite-only (as one implementation of community boundaries) is the future of online communities.
Although the statement "invite-only only is the future of online communities" isn't super well defined (what does it mean to "be the future"?), so I think the comments are debating past each other.