[HN Gopher] 4chan Turns 20
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       4chan Turns 20
        
       Author : zppln
       Score  : 98 points
       Date   : 2023-10-01 18:37 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (4chan.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (4chan.org)
        
       | kaiokendev wrote:
       | I had some of the best and worst conversation on 4chan. When the
       | only means of expressing yourself is by virtue of your ideas, it
       | really breed an atmosphere you can't find anywhere else. It just
       | a shame, you can really tell there is a lot of... intelligence
       | activity on the site.. from many nations, lol
        
         | gautamcgoel wrote:
         | When you say intelligence a activity, do you mean activity from
         | intelligence agencies like the CIA? Would be curious to hear
         | more if so.
        
           | theodric wrote:
           | Yes, it's full of "glowies." (We can thank Terry Davis of
           | Temple OS fame for that term.) Occasionally, a nutcase who
           | intends to do harm will have been found to hang out there[1],
           | and the glowies don't want to be the last to find out if said
           | nutcase posts their intentions in advance. Which is fair
           | enough. That's their job, after all.
           | 
           | [1] like the recent Rotterdam shooter
           | https://nltimes.nl/2023/09/29/rotterdam-shootings-suspect-
           | ex... https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/436995585
        
             | greyface- wrote:
             | 4chan loves the term "glowie" in part because its full
             | expansion incorporates a racist slur, but its shortened
             | form can be used in contexts like this, in which it seems
             | merely irreverent rather than racist. Thanks, Terry.
             | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glowie
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | _the only means of expressing yourself is by virtue of your
         | ideas_
         | 
         | what do you mean by that?
         | 
         | how is it any different on HN?
        
           | knallfrosch wrote:
           | 4chan enforces anonymity even across posts (at least on /b/)
           | and with missing nesting, you can lose track of replies fast.
           | So you're basically reading ideas only. Altough I do agree
           | HN's post system is one of the most similar. HN has a more
           | coherent culture and moderation, though.
        
             | kelipso wrote:
             | Any forum with up and downvoting cannot be called most
             | similar to 4chan lol. Discord is probably more similar, not
             | to mention the usual phpbb boards.
        
       | skilled wrote:
       | HN not loving this is not a surprise, 4chan is hardcore, but /g/
       | can be beared most of the time, it's mostly Debian/Arch people
       | there anyway.
       | 
       | But 4chan is a piece of history, a piece of the old web from its
       | roots and it's still going. I don't use the site myself but I
       | also haven't heard that they have made any changes to the rules.
       | 
       | You have something to say, whatever that may be, we have a board
       | for you to come and say it. That's amazing.
       | 
       | Happy Birthday and hope they can go for 20 more years.
        
         | zolbrek wrote:
         | >You have something to say, whatever that may be, we have a
         | board for you to come and say it. That's amazing.
         | 
         | That was more 8chan before the NZ mass murder, since anyone
         | could make a board and mod it the way they liked. 4chan is
         | known for having biased jannies who will delete content that
         | goes against their personal agendas. If you report outright
         | racism outside of /pol/ or /b/ it usually gets deleted too.
        
       | hmmmcurious1 wrote:
       | It's so sad that nation level agents have infiltrated the
       | moderator team and are now pushing divisive anti western ideas
       | and also grooming fifth columnists to create havoc in the western
       | world. Most of the boards I frequented in the past outright ban
       | you for saying anything remotely against russia and china but
       | promote all sorts of demoralization threads regarding the west. I
       | guess someone has to pay the server costs but with a huge
       | detriment towards the authenticity and culture that characterized
       | old 4chan
        
         | aragonite wrote:
         | You mean you can no longer post threads like this?
         | 
         | https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/442998412
         | 
         | (NSFW obviously)
         | 
         | You can post memes about beheading Chinese people on 4chan and
         | no one will bat an eye.
        
           | LightHugger wrote:
           | The point is that 4chan will ban you for innocent things, if
           | a moderator disagrees with you, funnily enough criticizing
           | video game censorship and journalists is bannable as well.
           | But does not ban for extreme racism and violent content like
           | that. It's not a free speech site anymore and hasn't been for
           | quite a few years now, basically.. it's just a racism site.
        
         | happytoexplain wrote:
         | I'm sure there are always some people looking into 4chan as a
         | place to spread an agenda due to the ease of posting, no need
         | for an account, popularity, etc. However, banning for "anything
         | remotely against russia and china" is a silly exaggeration.
         | Giving you the benefit of the doubt, my best guess is that you
         | posted on some of the boards with tighter moderation, and what
         | you posted was simply off topic. _Most_ boards still prune off-
         | topic shitposting _somewhat_ reliably.
         | 
         | Not to the exclusion of other peoples, you can find plenty of
         | gleeful posts about the brutal deaths of Russians and Chinese,
         | or just simply mocking their societies/industries, at any given
         | time on at least three boards, off the top of my head.
        
           | drekipus wrote:
           | You are very new (t)here.
           | 
           | It's a glowie/shill cesspool, not at all authentic.
           | 
           | I found some great friends from 4chan -> IRC channels, we all
           | fell away eventually, but it was a good 15 years of my life.
           | 
           | Now I couldn't even imagine taking to these people. I don't
           | think it's just because I'm older, either.
           | 
           | And I'm only taking about gee
        
           | vGPU wrote:
           | The fact that 4chan has mods that moderate towards their own
           | biases is extremely well known.
        
         | mik1998 wrote:
         | Are you claiming that Russia or China are paying 4chan
         | moderators? That seems unlikely for an American website owned
         | by a Japanese millionaire.
        
           | nailer wrote:
           | Why is that unlikely? Nobody else is paying moderators.
           | Prigozhin made the Internet Research Agency which we know
           | conducts influence operations, it would be amazing if China
           | didn't have a similar group.
        
         | wooque wrote:
         | Have you ever visited 4chan?
         | 
         | There is literally dedicated anti-Russian thread (/uhg/) on
         | /pol/ and also plenty of anti-Chinese sentiment all over the
         | board, I don't think day can pass without someone making fun of
         | Changs and Zhangs.
        
       | tux3 wrote:
       | >https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37729001
       | 
       | Off by one.
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | it's over 9000!
        
         | h2odragon wrote:
         | surely "over" is better?
        
           | dmonitor wrote:
           | in 4chan culture, the number of sequential digits at the end
           | of the random number assigned to your post is a mark of...
           | status? good luck? quality? I'm actually not sure, but it's a
           | desired thing to have.
        
             | loves_mangoes wrote:
             | More backstory: The ID assigned to posts is a sequential
             | incrementing number. So it is possible to "aim" for a nice
             | round number by posting at the right time
             | 
             | When people notice that their post IDs start approaching a
             | large whole number, a bunch of people might try to get
             | ("GET") the post with ID, say, 2000000 by timing it
             | 
             | It's not really a marker of anything, just a semi-random
             | event that people have fun with. It's sort of... tolerated,
             | as long as it's infrequent and doesn't cause too much noise
        
       | jjice wrote:
       | 4chan is such an interesting piece of internet history that's
       | still living. Despite lots of parts of 4chan being terrible, I
       | will say that the diy board has helped me figure out some clever
       | solutions to around the home jobs.
        
         | RetroTechie wrote:
         | A great thing about 4chan (and probably 1 reason users keep
         | coming) is its simplicity:
         | 
         | Post pic, some text, others do the same, or reply to your post.
         | 
         | That's it. Do 1 thing & do it well (Unix philosophy :-).
         | Reminds me of when Google's UI was praised for being "enter
         | search term here" box on otherwise empty page.
         | 
         | I think there will always be room for sites (or apps) like
         | that. Now, as for how to pay hosting bills etc... ??
        
           | tamimio wrote:
           | I think, additionally, the reason why it's still going,
           | besides the simplicity, is the pseudo-anonymity, your post is
           | just like any other post, what will really make it apart is
           | the context (or the image per se), and I believe that's the
           | purist form of internet interactions, you get called out on
           | your BS with no filters and without the fear of being
           | "cancelled", if you help someone, you are not looking for
           | brownie points or to become an e-celeb, you are just
           | genuinely trying to help, you fucked up one time and said
           | something bad or wrong? no one will screenshot it and use it
           | against you till hell freezes over, you did something amazing
           | in a post? It will be circulating around and referred back to
           | the board, not the person or the individual, so the concept
           | is really great as long as it is not a mainstream site, else
           | you will have all sort of shilling and spooks shenanigans
           | that will ruin that experience.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Don't click the link.
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | if you want to know what to expect, try this:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan
        
         | Shugarl wrote:
         | Why ?
        
           | smegsicle wrote:
           | unfiltered memes! you could see something illegal! or worse,
           | racist!
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | Because some links are better left unclicked.
        
       | sliechty wrote:
       | Happy Birthday 4chan
        
       | wly_cdgr wrote:
       | Happy Birthday to one of the few still-good sites on the open
       | internet
        
         | Dwedit wrote:
         | Ah yes, the site that makes you "anonymous" when you post, yet
         | requires you to send your Google cookies to Google servers
         | before the recaptcha loads.
        
           | ta8903 wrote:
           | 4chan hasn't been using google captcha for 2 years.
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | It's CloudFlare now, to get the captcha.
           | https://challenges.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/challenge-
           | platform/h/g/flow/ov1/#[snip]
        
           | coumbaya wrote:
           | I mean they offer a way around that. I'm not sure the point
           | is to spy on you, it's just the easiest way to avoid spam I
           | guess ?
        
       | fwungy wrote:
       | Reddit: Dumb acting smart. 4chan: Smart acting dumb. HN: Smart
       | acting smart.
        
         | kbelder wrote:
         | That leaves Facebook.
        
       | Boogie_Man wrote:
       | Let us take a moment to reflect on the greatest sysadmin who ever
       | was, Christopher Poole https://files.catbox.moe/9uyduv.jpg
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | bring back snacks
        
         | rollcat wrote:
         | Back when the Internet was quite literally held together with
         | duct tape
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | > Back when the Internet was quite literally held together
           | with duct tape
           | 
           | No, you'd have to go back further than that.
           | 
           | By the time 4chan came about, the web was starting to
           | crystalize into platforms, and standard tools and databases
           | had been developed. Design and UX was starting to be
           | important.
           | 
           | At the time of launch, I distinctly remember that my
           | classmates thought 4chan was weird for taking after
           | "primitive" Japanese image boards. (Craigslist, too, was
           | considered dated.)
           | 
           | The early "duct tape" days were the era of EzBoard (1996;
           | before phpBB, vBulletin, and Invision), Flash (1993),
           | Geocities (1994), Angelfire (1996), Lycos (1994), Dogpile
           | (1996), ICQ (1996), early AOL Instant Messenger (1997; before
           | Trillian, Gaim, Libpurple), lots of little IRC clients...
           | lots of CGI, Perl, and C all slapped together. That's when
           | flat file databases were a norm, not an exception.
           | 
           | 4chan came around the same time as Digg and Reddit, and in
           | response to some of the platformization that was already
           | starting to happen (Xanga, LiveJournal, and Blogger in
           | ~1999). The machinery and practice of modern web engineering
           | was already falling into place.
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | that was 10 years earlier
           | 
           | i was there...
        
           | theideaofcoffee wrote:
           | ... when ... was
           | 
           | Not much has changed, the whole contraption still is, to a
           | frightening extent.
        
         | ionwake wrote:
         | Amazing never heard of this post, I guess he did this after his
         | holiday to Mexico. Those labels are quite professional.
        
           | smegsicle wrote:
           | true- '4chan runs on a cluster of mac minis' is a claim just
           | silly enough to be acceptable without evidence
        
         | skilled wrote:
         | _checked and keked_
        
         | 416abc wrote:
         | I just wish he was able to keep http://canv.as/ going.
         | 
         | It was such a good product.
        
       | Shugarl wrote:
       | Who's the bunny character?
        
         | happytoexplain wrote:
         | Hiro, the owner who succeeded Moot.
        
       | ionwake wrote:
       | I still remember making a thread on /b/ when bitcoin hit $100,
       | with a pic of vegeta going super Saiyan.
       | 
       | See you space cowboy
        
       | freitzkriesler2 wrote:
       | Cute and charming. Appreciate the work the mods and hiroshimoot
       | do.
       | 
       | Oh and Jannies do it for free !
        
       | v3ss0n wrote:
       | greatest technological achievements done by 4chan community this
       | year https://boards.4channel.org/g/
       | 
       | - Automatic1111's work on stable diffusion, and comfyui
       | 
       | - Leaking llamav1 torrent on 4chan leads to explosion of local
       | models
       | 
       | - GPT4all by old 4chan user/troller Gpt4Chan
       | 
       | - Various uncensored LLMmodels
       | 
       | - Exllama born because a 4chan guy believes he can do faster
       | inference than llamacpp
       | 
       | 4chan guys goal of AI is very different from normies .. they are
       | building an AI Waifu and to replace human wives ..
        
         | 29athrowaway wrote:
         | They also had a part in creating QAnon, a movement that caused
         | a tremendous amount of harm including the January 6th
         | insurrection.
        
           | washadjeffmad wrote:
           | You probably won't understand if after half a decade you
           | haven't bothered to look into it yourself, but /g/ is as
           | close to /pol/ as Steve Jobs was to planning the Oklahoma
           | City bombing.
        
           | drekipus wrote:
           | Hasn't it been a known thing that "QAnon" was an FBI
           | operation? I thought that was public
           | 
           | I heard about qanon in news about Trump before I saw it on
           | 4chan
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-10-01 23:02 UTC)