To what end? Paul doesn't want me around and has made that passive aggressively clear, so I'm not sure what good contacting him would do. I discussed on jsprink_banned how not spending immeasurable amounts of time in HN threads has had a positive impact on my life anyway.
- Joshua Stein developed Lobsters by himself. Yahuda Katz was, to my knowledge, uninvolved.
- The site is invite only because, and I'm speaking for Josh here and mostly guessing (he'd be a better person to ask), it's still trying to identify itself. Communities are grown organically and I gather Josh is letting Lobsters grow slowly, intentionally. I don't think he has "launched" it, per se.
- I emailed Josh to support him when he was hellbanned (as my HN story parallels his), and a couple months after that exchange he invited me to the site. I don't participate much at all -- heads down on a product -- but I think it has potential.
- I have 5:1 odds the headline will not be fixed, even though there are three factual errors in that tiny bit of text (Katz, HN Competitor, Launched).
I got the same treatment he did -- and have on accounts I have made since -- and we exchanged emails during development. We both went through each others' posts and couldn't find any rational reason for the treatment (slow banning and hell banning, in both of our cases).
Lack of transparency is a pretty big deal on this forum, and once you've crossed Paul -- without knowing how -- it's scorched earth on any account you make. That's why Josh developed Lobsters, and why I'm user #2, and why I'm glad to see it's gaining traction as a community.
This site is more threatening to opinion and discourse than any on the public Internet, and that isn't hyperbole. The irony is that this is a hacker community, and most hackers would be appalled at slamming the door and creating a curated garden of ideas. I've posted as jsprink_banned and jsprinkles on the topic, if you're interested; won't spam this thread with it.