Lobsters
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Lobsters, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
The facts
Each one read from Lobsters's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Access limits
- New accounts need an invitation, and users are considered new for their first 70 days, during which some actions are restricted.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Email and messaging
- Users can enable mailing-list mode to receive stories and comments by email, reply by email, and use private messages with email or Pushover notifications.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Email features
- Mailing list mode sends new stories and comments by email, and users can reply to discussions from their email clients.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Feeds
- Public RSS feeds are available site-wide and by tag; logged-in users can use private feeds that exclude their filtered tags.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Hosting
- The site says it is hosted on two DigitalOcean VPSs and uses restic for backups to Backblaze B2.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Intended audience
- The guidelines describe the community as a place to learn about computing and share what members have made.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Invitations
- Invitations are used to control spam and pace registrations; new users have limited abilities during their first 70 days.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Launch
- The site launched on July 3, 2012.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Mobile access
- Responsive design supports smaller screens without requiring a separate mobile site or app.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Moderation
- Moderator actions and moderator identities are public, and banned profiles state who banned the user and why.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Notifications
- Users can receive email and Pushover notifications about new private messages.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Open source
- The site's source code and deployment configuration are available under a 3-clause BSD license, and the code can be used to start a sister site.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Operations
- The site says it is hosted on two DigitalOcean VPSs and uses restic for backups to Backblaze B2.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Privacy
- Domains used for marketing analytics are banned and tracking parameters are removed from links.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Privacy and tracking
- The site bans domains used for marketing analytics and removes tracking parameters from links.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Project model
- The project describes itself as a volunteer project with limited development time and says it does not take donations because it is cheap to run.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Lobsters is a computing-focused community centered around link aggregation and discussion.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Ranking
- Story and comment rankings come from user activity, and all users have equal votes.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Search
- Integrated search covers submitted stories and comments, including full-text caches of submitted story contents.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Support
- The site administrator directs users with support issues to contact him or another moderator.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Tag feeds
- Users can filter or subscribe to stories by one or more tags, and public and private RSS feeds are available.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Tag filters
- Users can filter out or subscribe to submissions by one tag or combinations of tags.checked 4 Oct 2026
- Topics
- The community focuses narrowly on computing, with stories tagged by submitters from a predefined list.checked 11 Oct 2026
The company
- Founded
- 2012checked 28 Sep 2026
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