Lobsters

Lobsters

Lobsters is a link aggregation and discussion website focused on technology and science articles. It features user-submitted links, voting and commenting similar to sites like Hacker News and Reddit.
Lobsters image
news links aggregation discussion technology science

Lobsters: Technology & Science Articles

Link aggregation and discussion website for tech and science articles, with user-submitted links, voting, and commenting.

What is Lobsters?

Lobsters is a community-driven link aggregation and discussion site focused on technology, science, and especially programming content. It was created in 2009 by Jeff Atwood and others as an alternative to sites like Reddit and Hacker News.

Some key features of Lobsters include:

  • User-submitted links to articles, papers, videos, etc. The focus is on high-quality, thought-provoking tech content.
  • Voting and commenting on links - users can upvote or downvote submissions and leave comments.
  • Strict moderation focused on high signal-to-noise ratio discussions.
  • Tags and filters allow customizing the feed to topics of interest.
  • Invitations required for new user sign-ups to maintain community quality.

Overall, Lobsters aims to foster intelligent, insightful conversations and highlight noteworthy content for technologists, programmers, scientists, and those interested in such topics. The smaller, more tightly-focused community culture distinguishes it from larger social sites.

Lobsters Features

Features

  1. User submitted links
  2. Voting and commenting on links
  3. Tagging and filtering of links by topic
  4. User profiles and karma scores
  5. Moderation tools

Pricing

  • Free
  • Open Source

Pros

Focused on high quality tech/science content

Active user community

Clean and simple interface

Effective moderation keeps discussions on-topic

Cons

Niche focus limits broad appeal

Requires invitation to join

Limited features compared to Reddit

Lower user base than major aggregators


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