Image Boards/Headscratchers

• Am I the only person that doesn't think 4chan is a bad place? It's irritating that everybody acts like 4chan = /b/, but the interest boards are genuinely good. And as for the "last boss of the internet" and "we are legion" stuff most of it is really just bored teenagers trying to be a part of something awesome. But they're bored teenagers that are relatively harmless. It's just a pet peeve I suppose but I can't be the only one who thinks this...
  • Oh, there are plenty of people who think like that. They're all wrong, though. 4chan is the ass of the internet, and just because /b/ is the polyp deep inside the rectum doesn't mean the rest of the boards aren't made of butt.
• So, why is it considered taboo to mention 4CHAN *scare chord* by name around here?
  • It isn't, really.
  • RULES 1 AND 2, NEWFAG. Actually those rules only apply to raids.
    • Not even that. Rules 1 and 2 are for Fight Club. They're a meme that was popular around the time the rules were created, just like every other rule. The people who act like there are 60 joke rules and 2 real ones on that list (which both happen to be the same rule) are all newfags.
    • What the dang freaking heck is a raid!? I can't find the answer anywhere!!!
    • Imagine your favorite page on the wiki. Now imagine it wiped clean of all the interesting factlets collected over several years; Replaced by vitriolic screaming and a shock image for a header. That's a reasonable start
  • I like to see it as an attempt to spare the innocent masses from the unbridled horror that is /b/.
    • You might be on to something there. Maybe it's like Hastur and saying its name gets your mind totally destroyed?
    • More like saying its name attracts its unwanted attention.
    • To-MAY-to, To-Mah-to.
    • Because most people can't avoid getting trolled.
    • Isn't that because of that Candlejack th
      • Or maybe that nobody wants to trigger a meme-fest?
      • Or perhaps it's the general consensus between Anonymous that they don't like TV Tropes. Some Anons have made vocal their opinions on TV Tropes in several of the boards on the site, and it's increasing exponentially by the day. Ergo, smart Tropers don't mention anything trope-related. It all goes back to not attracting unwanted attention and getting trolled.
      • What are you on about? On the boards with high amounts of writefaggotry and drawfaggotry such as /tg/ for example, pretty much everyone has been to TV Tropes and knows about the most well known tropes at least.
      • One would suspect that they are just mad that we thought of it first.
• What bothers me is that boards that are somewhat more normal like /tg/, /co/, and /u/ who actually have fairly normal comments get lumped in with the very worst of /b/.
  • This, just this, /tg/ can be a little wierd once in a while, but it's not much worse than sitting with an average group of 30 year old nerds talking about DnD/Warhammer 40000, you get some rage and alot of geeky humour. We are not /b/, and if anyone acts like a /b/tard on /tg/ they will quickly be told to get out. I remember once when someone posted a "There's a nigger in my DnD group, HOW DO I MAKE HIM GTFO?!?!?!" thread, after 10 posts of people telling the OP to stop being a racist, the thread got derailed into "How awesome would it be to play in a group with Morgan Freeman as the DM?".
  • Similarly to the original troper, some of the nicest people I've met on the internet come off of /c/, /cgl/ (Believe it or not, when drama is minimal, seagulls can be incredibly sweet and helpful), /co/, and especially /cm/, yet people who don't frequent those boards seem to think that the entirety of 4chan is just trolls and gorn. It really just has to do with ignorance and generalizing boards that they have yet to actually go on. Some people hear horror stories about /b/, then decide that they will never enter the site.
  • That's what happens when groups like /b/ get together. They attract trolls, who then start to ruin things for everyone else. As long as the site is going to allow them the freedom to troll around, then everyone else has to either put up with it or just not go to the site.
• Speaking of which, why do sites such as Sankaku Complex and Danbooru have their own articles, but 4Chan does not, despite it being one of the most notable imageboards on the net?
  • /u/ is probably one of the nicest boards I've seen, but it's also one of the slowest boards, It pretty much has about 3 posts a day. Rude comments don't really get noticed and flagged, so they can be seen pretty often, which leaves /u/ with a much worse rep than it deserves. It also happens to be a porn board so that might lower some people's opinions.
  • Read the description again. We're trying to avoid unwanted attention from The Imageboard That Must Not Be Named. Not directly referencing it in the title just makes life vastly easier for tropers involved.
• It bugs this troper that TV Tropes is letting trolls intimidate us with the threat of wiki-vandaling for mentioning simply mentioning 4chan
  • If a river threatens to demolish a padock, don't redirect the flow into a town.
• Has been there any Anonymous trolling that backfired?
  • Very much so. They tend to be short-term failures, though, and are quickly forgotten. This troper had a friend who tried trolling a certain board, and included a screenshot of his 'trolling' on facebook. He forgot to edit out his freaking nickname, and they found his account and bombarded him. The eventually got his phone number, address, and signed him up for a credit card. He was forgotten about by the end of the net day.
  • A few times where someone has tried to recruit the army of anon for personal misdeeds, they will simply be trolled or doxed (along with receiving the standard "Not your personal army" message), Enclyopedia Dramtica, a site for the worst 4chan trolls, grew to be so hate filled and repulsive that no one was willing to support it financially(and nothing of value was lost). And as a minor example, their repetitive vandalising of the ED entry caused the page to be locked, denying them a chance to promote themselves and further damaging their reputation.
  • Also any attempt at flaming My little Pony fans will encourage them to flood with pony pics, the high point of the Great Pony War being kicked off when a corrupt mod indiscriminately banned anyone posting ponies, which ensure that people would wait till he was gone then flood like crazy with ponies. Do not flame MLP pony fans or they WILL spam and troll the heck out of you. Also attempting to use 4chan to organise an invasion will generally just get you banned, at best.
• How the hell did /b/ get to this condition in the first place? If I'm not mistaken, it was originally just 4chan's general board, and now it has probably become the absolute worst Wretched Hive on the Internet, if not the whole world. Anyone have any idea how that happened?
  • /b/ was never good in the first place. However due to the law of averages, even among the torrential floods of crap there is the occasional diamond.
  • Read about Entropy and heat death. Replace any instance of "entropy" with "GIFT" or "/b/iety".
  • GIFT, mainly. Publicity may be a factor.
  • /b/? One of the worst boards? Barring the porn, it's a nice place with nice (or at least, civil) people. /vp/, on the other hand, used to be the nice board...
  • With heavy traffic, it would be pretty difficult to moderate the board. Most people on the site treat /b/ as a septic tank: let all the electronic feces be quarantined there and the rest will be okay.
  • It's not inherently bad. There are many posts that float around mentioning that it's just a place where people can posture and release their inner monsters--because they can't in real life. Venturing there and lurking for a while opens your eyes to it: It's fun and games coupled with emotional release. Also, it's frequently hilarious. (Plus, most group trollings are frowned upon because they're trite and give them a bad name. The few attacks that they all got behind were mostly just the anti-Scientology protests and Wikileaks support.)
• It exists. That's what bugs me. It has no right to exist, and should not exist, and yet... we just let it exist. No one EVER fights back when they troll people who don't deserve it, which reinforces their beliefs that they can just walk all over everyone. Well I have had enough of that; I am going to be plotting this Image Board's ultimate destruction for as long as I live!
  • A lot of people feel that they are wrong when it comes to what they do, but there's nothing we can do. Also, a lot of people who visit 4chan detest this behavior.
  • Read the description for Eldritch Abomination and rethink the words "it exists" very carefully.
  • Because they do a certain amount of good that justifies their existence, for example when a video was posted of someone drowning puppies on youtube Anons found the woman who did it within the week.
  • At it's heart, /b/ is just a Chaotic Neutral imageboard with evil tendencies. And porn. Lots and lots of porn.
  • Most of the 'bad' effects of trolling come from people over-reacting. Most of the 'good' effects of Anon's more kindhearted actions are done by other people that we informed of whatever wrongdoing.
  • When an Anon of The Imageboard That Must Not Be Named swears, says something stupid, or hates something with a burning passion, I know that they are either joking or have a very justified reason for doing so. When someone on Facebook or YouTube does something like that I'm scared for humanity's future. It's a bit of a stretch, but I believe that the average intelligence of an Anon is higher than the average user of the more popular social networking sites. Besides, it's not the worst Image Board out there. Just the most infamous.
  • I don't know if I'd say they're more intelligent, just more focused.
  • "No right to exist"? I don't think you understand rights. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable back on tumblr.