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Lobsters is trying to do the same thing as Hacker News - avoid the Eternal September effect at all costs. It just has more direct and overt methods of maintaini
by krapp 2y ago
Lobsters is trying to do the same thing as Hacker News - avoid the Eternal September effect at all costs. It just has more direct and overt methods of maintaining and enforcing its culture than here, and that starts with barring the door against the rabble.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThat's something that Slashdot does by limiting registrations. In contrast, by disallowing anonymous registrations (without a recommendation), Lobsters actively seeks out those who don't think differently at all, perpetuating its closed-mindedness.
- krapp 2y agoThey're optimizing for quality and civility - a certain standard of intellectual and emotional maturity - rather than controversy. Vetting through personal relationships and requiring reputation risk to let someone new in is an effective way to do that. Not every platform wants or needs to be a debate club.
- OutOfHere 2y agoOn the contrary, quality is not intrinsic; it emerges from a healthy debate, something that isn't generally possible on Lobsters.
- Karrot_Kream 2y agoI think that's certainly a goal of invite systems but I don't think Lobsters really lands this. The quality of its discussion isn't much to write home about. It is much friendlier to some opinions over others but quality is not the discriminator. If you write a middling article on Rust I can guarantee you that you'll get more positive feedback than a good article on Go or on LLMs simply because of the opinion bias of the community.
- 082349872349872 2y agoI wonder if the Dutch Strategy might work for a link aggregator: explicitly provide a well-signposted "front page", where the rabble congregates and the groupthink is at its Grundyest, yet implicitly expect any non-Septemberist discussions to occur well away from those few sacrificial links?
- gsf_emergency 2y agoLooks like we (or just i?) missed this discussion on the frontpage https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42502659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42502659 (Why did you call this dutch strategy, did Dijkstra use it? Ah you mean the oudekerk? Straathoertje?)
- gsf_emergency 2y agoAs a side effect you may observe that PhD cred'd professional designers (architects) are about as rare as nonsocialist(?) "Democratic Republics" (DRC?)
- gsf_emergency 2y agoI see, you meant the Dutch defence? Sorry zero chess knowledge here..
- 082349872349872 2y agoSorry, "dutch strategy" because the good burghers of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, etc. realised that although sailors have deplorable* morals, the burgher's prosperity depended upon having many sailors transiently around, so the burgher's solution was to create neighbourhoods catering to vice, with the idea that it would be tolerated there, and specifically there — far from the "good" neighbourhoods where their silk-skirted patent-leather-shod daughters hung out. * we've already touched upon LaSalle(?)'s riposte to Bonaparte, right?
- gsf_emergency 2y agoHaha first stab was closer then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Wallen#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Wallen#History* I hear that it's still a question of which came first, De Oude Kerk or De Wallen *CMI gets a mention, it's where LaSalle would have been practically deployed as a direct commissar of the Man? Recall also a protodiscussion of standardization of artillery in the revolutionary army vs navy?