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4chan
Official 4chan logo
File:4chan-frontpageapril.jpg4chan's main page as of April 1st, 2007
Type of siteImageboard/TextBBS
Available inEnglish
Owner"moot"
Created by"moot"
URL4chan.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationNo

4chan (四葉, Yotsuba, four leaves) is an English language imageboard based on the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel. This imageboard is based primarily around the posting of pictures (generally related to anime, manga, and popular culture) and their discussion.


Layout

The activity of 4chan takes place on discussion boards, image and upload boards, and drawing boards. Currently, there are thirty-five different image boards, covering topics ranging from anime, weapons, and photography to real and animated pornography. Eight of these were "trial boards" until January 9, 2007, when all of them except the sports board were upgraded to permanent boards; the sports board was discarded. On February 15, 2007 the site added two new trial boards called Paranormal and Traditional Games.

Other boards include an oekaki board, an Artwork/Critique board, an upload board that is used for the uploading and discussion of Flash movies, and nineteen text-based discussion boards. The discussion boards were once hosted on a separate site called "world4ch" (pronounced world four channel) until they moved to the subdomain dis.4chan.org. The discussion boards were initially created and hosted on world4ch as an homage to the defunct world2ch, which itself was a website intending to be an earlier attempt to create an English version of 2channel.

Because 4chan is provided to its users free of charge and consumes a large amount of bandwidth, its financing often becomes problematic. To avoid long periods of downtime caused by a severe lack of funds, such as the four "deaths" that plagued the site during its first year of existence, the 4chan staff regularly requests donations. However, there have been numerous problems relating to the use of several different online payment services, including PayPal, YowCow, and the Authorize.net payment gateway. The pornographic content hosted on 4chan violated the terms of services of various payment receiving services and so they refused to allow 4chan to use their services.


Anonymity

4chan is an anonymous BBS that does not require the user to supply any personal information, such as a name or email address, before being able to post messages. Unlike most web forums, 4chan does not have any kind of registration system. Any person can use any nickname to his or her liking, making it possible to post under the name of someone else by simply entering his or her name into the posting form. Nonetheless, most users post anonymously. In place of registration, 4chan has provided tripcodes as an optional form of authenticating a poster's identity. As the concept of anonymous posting is a defining feature of Futaba-like imageboards, the use of tripcodes generates controversy among 4chan users. Many posters who use them risk being singled out and ridiculed, often with the use of derogatory terms such as "tripfag." As anonymous posting causes posts to be attributed to "Anonymous" a running gag on 4chan is the idea that Anonymous is in fact a single person or the true name of the posters.

Moderators will generally post without a name even when banning users or posting information. In this case, the post is attributed to "Anonymous ## Mod" (though even mods are sometimes known to simply post as "Anonymous"). The primary exception is when 4chan's founder "moot" posts information relating to changes in the site.


Controversy

Hal Turner

In December of 2006 and January of 2007, individuals who identified themselves as /b/tards "raided" white nationalist Hal Turner, taking his site offline and costing thousands of dollars of bandwidth bills according to Turner.

See also

References

  1. ^ "4chan News Archive". 4chan. Retrieved 2007-01-10.
  2. "4chan Blotter". 4chan. Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  3. Cite error: The named reference 4chanFAQ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. Cite error: The named reference jerseyjournal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. "Cyber foes find ways to silence hate-talk radio host". freep.com. Retrieved 2007-02-28.

External links

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