[bb010g]

> When the Lobsters algorithm said his account was too new to post a link, I thought I was vouching for and reviewing his project link by posting it myself.

I'm pretty sure this would be considered a normal vouching & introduction of a member to the site, if those members did not then repeatedly follow up your introduction with repeated self-promotion (including bonus violation of the spirit of the unseen domain policy). As someone inviting others to Lobsters, you were trusted with a small duty to introduce them to the site properly. For most of those you invited, you were both the person initially posting the invitee's relevant unseen domain and the inviter for that invitee. It's respectful there to warn new users of site policy that you don't expect them to know.

When I invited a friend to Lobsters a few months ago so they could post their cool new project there, I made sure to educate them about the self-promotion policy so that both they could continue to use the site and so that I didn't become a problem for the site.

[jart]

I thought I was. It's just no one told me about the Lobsters policy. I consistently violated the Lobsters policy for several years and no one warned me. I'm just someone who quit her job at Google Brain to build open source code all day in service to the commons. The thought never occurred to me there's people out there who view what I do as spamming and self-promotion. Before I got banned, I'd never heard the word spam used that way, which is why I was so confused. I wish I'd known beforehand that I wouldn't be welcome there, since then I wouldn't have engaged. Honestly I think the real victims here are the Lobsters community members. My work still gets promoted on Lobsters, even though I'm banned. When I publish something new or end up in the news, there's usually a Lobsters thread about it. The only difference is that now I'm not allowed to make myself personally available to my fans, answering their questions, and fixing the bugs they encounter. So I feel like I'm gaining publicity unfairly since Lobsters denies me the ability to fulfill my moral obligation to serve the people whose respect I'm earning.

[stephenr]

> I think the real victims here are the Lobsters community members.

And yet Lobste.rs members aren't the ones complaining ad nauseum about it.

> the people whose respect I'm earning.

I'm not sure there's much danger of that with anyone who reads through all this.