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There are features of 4chan that I don't often see discussed that I think contribute to the communities ease of conversation. Firstly that all conversations ar
by have_faith 8y ago
There are features of 4chan that I don't often see discussed that I think contribute to the communities ease of conversation.
Firstly that all conversations are flat and always chronological. This might not sound very interesting but it reduces the cognitive load of moving through a thread, everyting is very predictable.
Second is that any post, from any thread, on any board, can be referenced by any other post. The ease at which narrative can be strung together by reference is probably one of 4chan (and other image boards) best features. The fact that you can just hover over a link like >>45646435645 and it shows you what the post said negates the need for nested conversations and produces a narrative of conversation that is both simpler than nested forums because of the 0 nesting, but also more complex because of the expressiveness of referencing anything.
I'm not sure if the second feature requires the first to work as a mental model, or it would get very messy.
- huffmsa 8y agoThe inline nature is great. Unlike me having to reply to you directly here, on 4chan I could address both your post and others which touch on the same topic in one shot. And since my post would have direct citations of the posts I'm referring to, you could then better structure your comment. The hover over feature killed the duckroll though.
- cosarara 8y agoThe duckroll?
- have_faith 8y agoThe precursor to Rick-Rolling: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duckroll https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duckroll
- pessimizer 8y ago> you can just hover over a link like >>45646435645 and it shows you what the post said This is a very recent, far post-decline feature, though. Not that it wasn't an improvement for imageboards to start implementing it, but it didn't have any role in their rise or peak.
- modzu 8y agoanother early one was the lack of censorship and freedom of speech. no place like that exists at the moment. i always associated the freedom of speech and hacker culture together, but sadly that no longer seems true (ex even here on hn it is not too hard to get a ban)