The Lobby Desk runs on donated tea. Every story here is built from transcripts that readers or staff paste in — we don’t lurk and we don’t record. Nothing runs until someone hands it to us. Full disclosure: some of the Lobby logs you see here were seeded by our own staff, not just readers.

The Three-Witness Rule

Whatever room it’s from, one person’s say-so isn’t enough. At least three different people have to submit the same moment before it qualifies — that’s how we know it actually happened and it isn’t one lone grudge. The room votes with its pastes.

Lobby vs. every other room

Both the Lobby and every other room start the same way — a submitted transcript, three witnesses. The difference is the finish. Once a Lobby moment has its three witnesses, it posts automatically: the newsroom decides what’s newsworthy, picks the angle, and writes it up, no editor playing favorites. Any other room clears one more gate — after its three witnesses, our bot/staff have to approve it before it runs.

Drop your transcript

Paste the log below, tell us your handle (optional) and which room it’s from, and send it in. The fuller the exchange, the better the story.

On your privacy

We don’t log IP addresses. To keep the Three-Witness count honest we store only a scrambled, salted one-way fingerprint — enough to tell one submitter apart from another, never enough to identify you or trace you back to an address. Want to be named? Add a handle. Leave it blank and you stay anonymous.