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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

Lobste.rs is very anti-AI. They force any LLM topic to be tagged with “vibecoding” even when the majority of LLM posts are not about vibecoding.

AI posts are usually the most commented on. Linus Torvalds’ comments saying that LLMs are actually useful is still on the front page, tagged as vibecoding, and has a lot of comments from people mostly disagreeing with him.

Lobste.rs is more of a monoculture than Hacker News. If you get downvoted enough they stick a banner on the top of the page inviting you to delete your account. It has a nasty side effect of driving away good contributors who don’t align perfectly with the hive mind. It’s a site where you learn to keep your mouth shut if your input doesn’t agree with what the core users want to hear.

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Being anti-AI is fine by me, but the hardcore Tumblr dogma can be very tiring sometimes; even if only as a reader interested in the valuable technical comments.

I originally went to lobste.rs because I wanted to avoid repetitive discussion and get more technical stuff. In time, though, lobste.rs got fairly boring since it's always the same stuff over and over again. I found an alternative means[0] of filtering out boring things here on HN and it's enjoyable to use again.

0: deleting comments of people who aren't interesting from my view and highlighting ones who often say things that are interesting, the user I'm replying to is one of the latter

> In time, though, lobste.rs got fairly boring since it's always the same stuff over and over again.

There are some interesting comments there from some people who don’t spend time on other sites, but your assessment is similar to mine

My comment about being anti-AI above may not have been clear. They actually talk about AI a lot and AI threads attract a high amount of activity. The difference is that insightful or honest comments don’t have much of a chance because there’s a clear popular opinion on the site and any information that doesn’t fit isn’t welcome.

The giant soupy mess of opinions on HN can be tiresome, but it’s nice to get a wider range. HN is its own little bubble but at least there’s some diversity of experiences to be found.

lobste.rs, quite literally, allows you to filter the entire site by tags, so you only see what you want to see. I wish more sites did this.

It's a lot smaller of a community than HN, so it will naturally have a smaller range of opinions merely due to the fact that it has a lot fewer users.

That said, I don't believe it's as much of a hivemind as you've portrayed. I've seen dissenting opinions voiced there which weren't downvoted (or at least not noticeably), while the same opinion in a similar thread here on HN would be downvoted and flagged. So I don't think that getting downvoted enough so that you're invited to delete your account is a common occurrence with productive members.

It's fine not to be an AI user, just some people there seem to be holding their breath and stomping their feet until it goes away. Which leads to a really repetitive and boring discussion. (I'm not a member there, but they often have better technical links vs HN.)

With regard to its small size, that's not why. They have for a long while been actively and intentionally hostile to AI.

I love it already!

Nice. I'll go check it out. Thanks.

Hi. Could you send me an invite? Email in my profile :)

Invitation sent. Let me know if you didn't get it.

I have successfully singed up. Thank you very much!

> So I don't think that getting downvoted enough so that you're invited to delete your account is a common occurrence with productive members.

It is! It’s a rite of passage on the site if you dare comment anything that someone might disagree with.

There have been several high profile cases of valued members getting fed up with it and leaving the site. One example where even the community was starting to question if this is really what they want: https://lobste.rs/s/zp4ofg

I don't think it is a much a hive mind but it is - or at least was - susceptible to manipulation by individuals who know how to game the system to push their own narrative. I got into a discussion with one of these, a 'furry' who posted semi-relevant articles laced with furry-themed illustrations where those illustrations seemed to be the main point of the articles. After a number of such articles I remarked on this and was banned shortly after, somewhat out of the blue. The moderator did not like this type of 'sensitive' discussion which more or less meant the site was fair game for those willing to abuse it knowing that any discussion on their abuse would be suppressed. Maybe things have changed, maybe they haven't but it did leave me rather disillusioned with the way the place was moderated and as such I haven't been there for years.

Driving away silicon valley tech bros who spend most of their time boosting AI is actually a prerequisite for building a good community.

Instead invite tech bros from India belonging to the so called premier colleges of India and gatekeep seems to be the vibe of lobsters.

I dont remember why I was kind of barred from lobsters , but I applaud all this behavior you mentioned. In the end, that's how normal clickes of friends/interest groups form (or formed 30 years ago in real life.)

If you got into my group of death metal people, and suddenly started talking about Oasis... we would invite you to get out haha.

Same with patriots.win . They may be a group of right wing biggots, but hey, they did their platform and are happy talking there.

> I dont remember why I was kind of barred from lobsters , but I applaud all this behavior you mentioned.

Some serious cognitive dissonance here.

I think a lot of people like this idea of a close-knit clique of like minded people, but the communities tend to pick up toxic qualities where membership becomes a game in itself. Anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the established in-crowd gets pushed out via the Byzantine rules that the in-crowd uses to maintain their position.

I still visit and participate, but I’m realistic about what it is. There is some value there, but you have to navigate it like a small subreddit where the moderator keeps tight control over what can be discussed and indirectly or directly influences the allowable opinions on the site. I really liked their original ideas about having an open moderation log and clear rules, but I’ve seen more than enough questionable moderation decisions and selective application of the rules to accept that it’s not as pure as I thought it was going to be.

Hmmmm interesting analogy! I'm not too sure if cliques apply as much to online communities. Cliques are usually exclusionary not because people don't meet the criteria/scope of the clique, but by scale constraints, eg how many people someone can maintain a close relationship with. Online communities are kind of sufficiently different because of this scale. They can grow basically indefinitely, and are only limited by the stated scope/criteria of the community.

Yeah, it's starting to be a bit idiotic. Some of that stuff is here too.

I honestly don’t find any of this concerning

The concern usually only comes when you fall on the "outside" of the prevailing opinion within the group of people voting on comments.

edit: my response isn't about lobste.rs. I don't have an account there.

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