3 ms·

hydra[1]. if you remove 4chan I guarantee you well get 3 in its place. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology https://www.britannica.com/t

hydra[1]. if you remove 4chan I guarantee you well get 3 in its place. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology

edgineer 6y ago
There are already many smaller chans, with varied attending demographics. I think this is referred to as "the webring." 4chan would sure be a shame to see go, though.
klodolph 6y ago
Why do you say that? What do you mean by that? If you take an online community down, the people that made up that community will not all end up in the same place, they won’t bring the entire culture of that community with them, and some of them won’t make the jump. Maybe you end up with three new chans, but you end up with three smaller, more fractured chans. Organization and relationships will evaporate because people won’t have alternate ways of recognizing or reaching their friends, may not use the same handles, may not end up on the same sites, etc. Site administrators will get worn out and tired of dealing with it, and may run out of money to keep the site up. I’m not saying that you should take down 4chan, just saying that if 4chan did disappear, it would leave a big hole that would take a long time to fill again. That, and any new chans would have a hard time claiming to be THE chan. There are already like twenty active “chan” sites or more. Besides 2channel and 4chan, the other sites don’t have much credibility or “pull”.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  I think 4chan is different. It has a unique user base with a lot of internet history. If you take it down it will create a new energy in the free speech movement that will gain incredible momentum. 4chan is definitely functioning as a containment site right now. It hasn't changed in years, so a replacement would likely be more innovative.
  - klodolph 6y ago
    Containment sites are not necessary. Instead of containing people, you can ban them. It works better than containment.
- KLexpat 6y ago
  >>If you take an online community down, the people that made up that community will not all end up in the same place, they won’t bring the entire culture of that community with them, and some of them won’t make the jump. Parler was the top 180 website in the USA according to alexarank, before it went down the other day. This is just from mostly middle aged americans being frustrated with their facebook groups being deleted. It's pretty easy to start chans out of the box and the userbase will eventually congregate to one place >>Maybe you end up with three new chans, but you end up with three smaller, more fractured chans. Organization and relationships will evaporate because people won’t have alternate ways of recognizing or reaching their friends, may not use the same handles, may not end up on the same sites, etc. This is pretty irrelevant to anonymous communities. Mostly they just move to like boards, i.e. 8chan, 16chan, 2ch, 4ch, endchan, infinite chan, and more all have an /anime/ board. The point being that the board is more relevant than the chan site itself.
  - klodolph 6y ago
    > […] the userbase will eventually congregate to one place There’s a big catch, though. “Eventually” is the key word. It takes a long time, and the disappearance of one forum does serious damage to the community, and the community has to go through the work of recovering from that damage. I’ll say that I’m not sure it happens. We often get this idea that these online communities are like magical cockroaches that will keep coming back. Being a /pol/ user is not the same thing as being a cockroach. You’re just a person. At some point, if being a /pol/ user is inconvenient and frustrating, then maybe you give it up. Site operators go broke or get tired of the community. The internet does not make communities immune to attack.
jojobas 6y ago
That could be true 10-15 years ago. Today you can't run these off a $50/month VPS, you'll be DDOS'd out of existence the moment someone uses a slur someone else doesn't like. Until a week ago colo providers, reverse proxies and ISPs have been neutral but just you watch the next few weeks.
trianglem 6y ago
Yeah like tpb is a hydra right? Torrent offerings are dismal now, a shadow of what they used to be.

hydra[1]. if you remove 4chan I guarantee you well get 3 in its place. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology

edgineer 6y ago

There are already many smaller chans, with varied attending demographics. I think this is referred to as "the webring." 4chan would sure be a shame to see go, though.

klodolph 6y ago

Why do you say that? What do you mean by that? If you take an online community down, the people that made up that community will not all end up in the same place, they won’t bring the entire culture of that community with them, and some of them won’t make the jump. Maybe you end up with three new chans, but you end up with three smaller, more fractured chans. Organization and relationships will evaporate because people won’t have alternate ways of recognizing or reaching their friends, may not use the same handles, may not end up on the same sites, etc. Site administrators will get worn out and tired of dealing with it, and may run out of money to keep the site up. I’m not saying that you should take down 4chan, just saying that if 4chan did disappear, it would leave a big hole that would take a long time to fill again. That, and any new chans would have a hard time claiming to be THE chan. There are already like twenty active “chan” sites or more. Besides 2channel and 4chan, the other sites don’t have much credibility or “pull”.

devmunchies 6y ago
I think 4chan is different. It has a unique user base with a lot of internet history. If you take it down it will create a new energy in the free speech movement that will gain incredible momentum. 4chan is definitely functioning as a containment site right now. It hasn't changed in years, so a replacement would likely be more innovative.
- klodolph 6y ago
  Containment sites are not necessary. Instead of containing people, you can ban them. It works better than containment.
KLexpat 6y ago
>>If you take an online community down, the people that made up that community will not all end up in the same place, they won’t bring the entire culture of that community with them, and some of them won’t make the jump. Parler was the top 180 website in the USA according to alexarank, before it went down the other day. This is just from mostly middle aged americans being frustrated with their facebook groups being deleted. It's pretty easy to start chans out of the box and the userbase will eventually congregate to one place >>Maybe you end up with three new chans, but you end up with three smaller, more fractured chans. Organization and relationships will evaporate because people won’t have alternate ways of recognizing or reaching their friends, may not use the same handles, may not end up on the same sites, etc. This is pretty irrelevant to anonymous communities. Mostly they just move to like boards, i.e. 8chan, 16chan, 2ch, 4ch, endchan, infinite chan, and more all have an /anime/ board. The point being that the board is more relevant than the chan site itself.
- klodolph 6y ago
  > […] the userbase will eventually congregate to one place There’s a big catch, though. “Eventually” is the key word. It takes a long time, and the disappearance of one forum does serious damage to the community, and the community has to go through the work of recovering from that damage. I’ll say that I’m not sure it happens. We often get this idea that these online communities are like magical cockroaches that will keep coming back. Being a /pol/ user is not the same thing as being a cockroach. You’re just a person. At some point, if being a /pol/ user is inconvenient and frustrating, then maybe you give it up. Site operators go broke or get tired of the community. The internet does not make communities immune to attack.

jojobas 6y ago

That could be true 10-15 years ago. Today you can't run these off a $50/month VPS, you'll be DDOS'd out of existence the moment someone uses a slur someone else doesn't like. Until a week ago colo providers, reverse proxies and ISPs have been neutral but just you watch the next few weeks.

trianglem 6y ago

Yeah like tpb is a hydra right? Torrent offerings are dismal now, a shadow of what they used to be.