I think there's been some people who have had e.g. multiple successful articles on HN that got them vouched for on lobste.rs (and presumably had some sort of pu

I think there's been some people who have had e.g. multiple successful articles on HN that got them vouched for on lobste.rs (and presumably had some sort of public contact to let them know to create an account), but there's also been people that just invited all their coworkers. So defacto it's sort of like a members club with occasional honorary membership.