What would 4chan be like if we had user names?
>>466378
search 'sheeky forums'
it's a 4chan clone page that adds an username to every post
use adblock
>"Hahaha, hey Stevie, didn't see you for a long time. How's Katie? :)"
Just like every average forum.
But we already have usernames.
>>466378
Literally exactly the same except there'd be nobody complaining about tripfags.
There are so many fucking people on 4chan that if everybody had a name then nobody would remember anybody except for avatarfags.
>>466378
Imagine a MyBB Forum
remove sub forums
add """boards""" instead
add a feature for [img] tags but make it show up where the thread title is supposed to be.
remove account regisration
remove bbcode
fuck the postbit to hell and back
You now have 4chan.org
>>466378
Shit.
It would just be another forum.
>>466494
I think you're overestimating the volume of regular posters. You have lots of people overall - plenty of them lurkers - but the users who stay many hours on 4chan per day are much fewer. Without anonymity, 4chan wouldn't be the same.
>>467601
You assert your baseless assumptions and I'll assert mine.
>>467624
With persistent identities come the various vanities that plague humanity which you can find on every other community on the internet. 4chan is not defined by the userbase, which is exactly the same types of faggots that browse other websites, it's the platform. If you believe that the people here were special snowflakes that are above human nature, then you're delusional.
With persistent names 4chan would be as shitty as reddit and any other cancerous community out there.
>>467736
So are you new to 4chan or have you just never been anywhere else? Because you fundamentally do not understand the world. When everybody's a special snowflake, nobody is.
I can name way more famous 4chan users than I can name famous redditors. Those usernames do absolutely nothing. People become famous by being novel and interesting. Between that fucker on /mu/ who listened to In The End by Linkin Park a bajillion times and that guy who had the folder full of different pornos based on the tiled floors. Different /r9k/ idiots who post ridiculous manifestos and then shoot their schools. This "Vanity" you speak of is SIMULTANEOUSLY not as much of a problem on other websites AND a huge part of 4chan. What the FUCK man?
Look at this picture. This is a picture of people with their faces clearly visible. This is a crowd of human beings with easilly identifiable markings. Their shapes, their colors, their noses, their eyes. They ALL have visible indicators of who each of them are. Do any of them really stand out? Maybe that one girl who's kinda ugly because she's looking directly at the camera but other than that, what really stands out? Are all of these people vainly trying to make a name for temselves by existing?
Appart from the admins, can you name even one Something Awful user? Can you name even one Tumblr user who wasn't already a celebrity? They all just fucking blend together. It's all the same fucking shit.
Then you've got fucking 4chan where everybody's wearing a mask except for like 3 or 4 people and those 3 or 4 people stick the fuck out. Yes. I agree completely. But they only stick out because they're different from the pack! When everybody's different, no one is.
>>467777
Followup image. Here's a group of people in masks and one guy not wearing a mask.
>>467777
>So are you new to 4chan or have you just never been anywhere else?
I've been using the internet since the mid 90s and I've been here since 2005. I know this place and elsewhere well enough - very likely far better than you do.
>This "Vanity" you speak of is SIMULTANEOUSLY not as much of a problem on other websites AND a huge part of 4chan.
No, this is completely wrong. On 4chan, nothing you do contributes to your reputation. Within non-anonymous environments, each contribution is remembered and every following contribution is put in that historical context. People are systemically motivated to cultivate these online identities of theirs and they begin to literally identify with them, which means that every contribution also serves the purpose of self-portrayal. On 4chan, this is at best momentarily. You may have momentary success with a good contribution, but you'll never be able to claim it for yourself, because you were anonymous at that time. This makes conversation more open and honest since it was freed of the social dead weight, stripped to its essence.
>When everybody's different, no one is.
Initially, yes. When you're new to a community you may not be able to tell individual users apart, but if you spend time in a community you'll get to know the recurring faces. You'll know who the outsiders are with deviating opinions, you know who the local top-dogs are who are considered authorities on certain subjects, you know who is regarded a loser because he once talked too openly about his odd fetishes, etc. - these hierarchies exist everywhere where people come together. With persistent identities come the social structures. On 4chan, this does not exist. Each post is equal. Only its content counts.
We may have a few tripfags here, but they're more treated like court jesters than serious contributors, which usually also has something to do with most tripfags being narcissistic idiots who don't contribute in a worthwhile fashion.
>>467903
>No, this is completely wrong
No this is completely right.
Look at this picture. This is a picture of people with their faces clearly visible. This is a crowd of human beings with easilly identifiable markings. Their shapes, their colors, their noses, their eyes. They ALL have visible indicators of who each of them are. Do any of them really stand out? Are all of these people vainly trying to make a name for themselves by existing?
Apart from the admins, can you name even one Something Awful user? Can you name even one Tumblr user who wasn't already a celebrity? They all just fucking blend together. It's all the same fucking shit.
Then you've got fucking 4chan where everybody's wearing a mask except for like 3 or 4 people and those 3 or 4 people stick the fuck out. Yes. I agree completely. But they only stick out because they're different from the pack! When everybody's different, no one is.
>>467910
>No this is completely right.
It is completely wrong, and I told you precisely why that is. If you want to tell me that I'm wrong in my analysis, respond to the points in my analysis.
>Apart from the admins, can you name even one Something Awful user? Can you name even one Tumblr user who wasn't already a celebrity?
I could name people from all the communities I was part of while being part of that community. Certainly I've forgotten many names by now, but while being part of the community you certainly get to know the people who spend a lot of time there.
This is not about being famous outside of the community - I'm not talking about "fame" in the sense of having people recognise you on the street or elsewhere on the internet - it's about a local reputation which is accumulated by making contributions within that community, limited to the other members of that community.
>>466378
Like early 2000s 4chan.
Seriously, lurk the way back archives. The posts where basically tripfags and anime forum posts.
>>467903
>You may have momentary success with a good contribution, but you'll never be able to claim it for yourself, because you were anonymous at that time. This makes conversation more open and honest since it was freed of the social dead weight, stripped to its essence.
You can also be attacked arbitrarily for being new or for being an outsider (proof that even the faceless anonymous mobs care about identity) and generally shitposted at in ways that you cannot successfully combat, since there's never any proof that you are who you say you are.
There is, of course, the lovely notion that your post should be able to stand on it's own merits, but your post standing on it's own merits does nothing when you've got a mob shitposting at your heels convinced you need to be burned at the stake.
>>467928
>You can also be attacked arbitrarily for being new or for being an outsider
And you can dismiss that attack arbitrarily as well because it's completely baseless.
Look at what you attempted in >>467777, asserting I was new and how I responded in >>467903.
There is absolutely no guarantee that I didn't blatantly lie to you, yet nobody seemed to question my story.
>shitposted at in ways that you cannot successfully combat
If it's shitposting you can ignore it, if it's people disagreeing with you (something that is often dismissed as shitposting) then you can respond and address their arguments. There's quite a bit you can do.
>your post standing on it's own merits does nothing when you've got a mob shitposting at your heels convinced you need to be burned at the stake.
What are they supposed to do? Disagree with you on the internet? If you made your point and they can't refute it then you've won the argument. I fail to see the issue.
>>467941
>Look at what you attempted in >>467777, asserting I was new
That was somebody else.
>There is absolutely no guarantee that I didn't blatantly lie to you
I'm not an attack dog aimed at trying to shit you off of my board.
>If you made your point and they can't refute it then you've won the argument. I fail to see the issue.
You can't win an argument just by being right - winning is not about simply being right (otherwise you would have won before you started); you have to either convince the person you're arguing with, or the court of public opinion.
Any argument that goes long enough can be pulled into a thousand snarls where people claimed you haven't proven things that you've proven, or just descend into an utter shitfight of arcane detail where the last person awake claims victory.
>>467945
>You can't win an argument just by being right - winning is not about simply being right (otherwise you would have won before you started); you have to either convince the person you're arguing with, or the court of public opinion.
Not entirely. You don't have to convince the other person. If your opponent cannot refute your arguments, bringing that up alone is going to make you the victor. If he fails to see reason, then it can't be helped. Keep in mind: you have nothing to lose on 4chan but time. And when it comes to public opinion on 4chan, you'll have to piss off lots of people in order to bring them all up against you that you cannot call samefag any more.
>Any argument that goes long enough can be pulled into a thousand snarls where people claimed you haven't proven things that you've proven, or just descend into an utter shitfight of arcane detail where the last person awake claims victory.
This happens from time to time, but I don't see that much of an issue. The same happens on regular forums where people have names. And there these things are much more likely to make people hold a grudge and confront you in the future again. On 4chan everything is forgiven and forgotten when the thread dies.
>>467954
>If your opponent cannot refute your arguments, bringing that up alone is going to make you the victor.
It doesn't matter whether he can refute your arguments, as long as he claims he has, and people believe him (which means he wins), or they aren't following the discussion closely enough to figure out who's full of shit (in which case it's basically a draw.)
>Keep in mind: you have nothing to lose on 4chan but time. And when it comes to public opinion on 4chan, you'll have to piss off lots of people in order to bring them all up against you that you cannot call samefag any more.
Which is victory to the loudest or most autistic.
>On 4chan everything is forgiven and forgotten when the thread dies.
If only. And the fact that people will remember "that one fag" is not even the half of it. The best part about the whole thing is when you get identified as a member of some nefarious collective enemy, and the label is used not only to shitpost at you but those like you for as long as 4chan's collective memory lasts. Which can be years.
>>467961
>as long as he claims he has, and people believe him (which means he wins), or they aren't following the discussion closely enough to figure out who's full of shit (in which case it's basically a draw.)
As I told you, you can't really know whether you're winning since in most cases the other posters are very likely not to give a shit about you, and other posters are easily dismissed as samefags. Winning on 4chan is more of a personal thing between you and the other guy. And if he claims he has but hasn't you can tell him that, and try to make him see reason. If that doesn't work, you might as well proclaim yourself victor and stop responding after telling him that. And if your arguments were reasonable, others will realise you won (in most cases they will not give a shit though). In the end, it's completely meaningless for anyone but you because you have no reputation that you could lose from losing an argument in the eyes of others.
>If only. And the fact that people will remember "that one fag" is not even the half of it.
You'd have to be quite a bit of a fag for people to remember you throughout threads. Don't forget that you can always claim not to be that guy though in case you actually are pointed out, something which never happened to me in the many years I've been here - and I've had quite a lot of heated arguments on 4chan.
>The best part about the whole thing is when you get identified as a member of some nefarious collective enemy, and the label is used not only to shitpost at you but those like you for as long as 4chan's collective memory lasts. Which can be years.
People may call you an outsider in a rhetorical sense in order to not have to address your arguments, but such things are usually quite easily dismissed by confronting them with exactly that. If you call people out on their rhetoric and tell them to focus on the given arguments, then they will. And if they won't, you simply claim victory for yourself.
>>467971
>If that doesn't work, you might as well proclaim yourself victor and stop responding after telling him that.
Which is how most 4chan arguments end, except coming from both sides.
>In the end, it's completely meaningless for anyone but you because you have no reputation that you could lose from losing an argument in the eyes of others.
The victor determines the so-called truth, to be used as ammunition for arguments that will continue into the future. Give in and a whole generation of mindless sheep will be raised into believing false history. Again, victory to the loudest.
>People may call you an outsider in a rhetorical sense in order to not have to address your arguments, but such things are usually quite easily dismissed by confronting them with exactly that.
To be followed up by insinuations that you're so retarded that you don't even know why you're retarded, and a cultural imperialist to boot.
Claiming victory and leaving is someone anyone can do at any time whether anybody has addressed your argument or not. Some people will claim victory after "proving" you're some horrible newfag fresh from X site and shitposting the thread into the ground.
>>467980
>Which is how most 4chan arguments end, except coming from both sides.
No, not in my experience. In most cases people simply stop posting.
>The victor determines the so-called truth, to be used as ammunition for arguments that will continue into the future.
Nobody but the two participants will remember. Certain topics will come up again and again and the arguments both sides field will also likely be the same. Even if one side loses more often than the other, it does not discourage people from trying. Winning arguments on 4chan is a completely personal thing; you're not going to establish some truth you can point people to, e.g. like in a regular forum with a search function. In regular non-anonymous communities, all these things are way more of an issue.
>To be followed up by insinuations that you're so retarded that you don't even know why you're retarded, and a cultural imperialist to boot.
So you call them names back or leave it at that. Not to mention that in the majority of cases a reasonably worded reply is going to get you reasonably worded replies in return. If you keep calm and don't immediately start insulting people, you're going to be taken seriously by those in the mood for a serious discussion. And those who don't want to discuss aren't worth discussing with. There's absolutely no need to feel so intimidated by potentially hostile replies.
>Claiming victory and leaving is someone anyone can do at any time whether anybody has addressed your argument or not.
Of course. But as I repeatedly told you: it's not about the point of view of others, it's about your own point of view. If you've discussed properly and presented your arguments in a reasonable fashion and your opponent was unable to refute them, then you've won no matter what.
>Some people will claim victory after "proving" you're some horrible newfag fresh from X site and shitposting the thread into the ground.
Some may try, but such things can also be addressed.
If I was forced to have a username here it would upset me very much. The main reason I come here is because I can post anonymously.
>>467980
>>467988 here
In any case I don't even know what you're trying to argue. You're describing common rhetoric as it takes place anywhere on the internet as if it were special to 4chan - despite the already mentioned fact that this is much more effective elsewhere on the internet. In communities with persistent identities you cannot just assert that someone is a newfag you can prove it based on the post-count. In communities with persistent you may have a reputation of being knowledgeable and thus people are more inclined to believe you despite the other side's arguments being better. Or you may have e-friends who will come to your aid even if you're wrong, or perhaps because your profile says you're a girl and they're hoping to get some e-hugs for it. Not to mention if you're an authority figure, like a moderator or something - which on 4chan are discouraged from participating in order to not disrupt conversation.
Literally everything you've mentioned also applies and is worse on communities with persistent identity.
And there, if you lose an argument people will certainly remember, and if you bring it up again they'll point you to past discussions, remind you that you supposedly got told even if you didn't, dismiss you as a troll who can't let go, etc.
It's getting a bit late here though, so we'll have to continue this discussion at a later stage if the threads still exists then, otherwise I claim victory for myself because I clearly had the better arguments in this discussion.
Until later then - or perhaps another thread, in which you'll have the opportunity to argue with me again; or perhaps someone else who holds similar views.
>>467988
>No, not in my experience. In most cases people simply stop posting.
Which is because one of the posters gracefully bowed out, or simply did not have the autism to continue. That's quite great. But it only works because there wasn't a hyper-persistent, self-assured, agenda-pushing or merely delusional autist (or group thereof) attempting to impose their will on the board. Groups have succeeded in this before.
>Winning arguments on 4chan is a completely personal thing; you're not going to establish some truth you can point people to, e.g. like in a regular forum with a search function.
4chan has a search function, but more importantly than that, it has institutional memory.
>Not to mention that in the majority of cases a reasonably worded reply is going to get you reasonably worded replies in return.
Even a "reasonably worded reply" can trigger people's red flags if you use the wrong words or make the wrong arguments. 4chan is often not full of people in the mood for a serious discussion, but are usually in the mood to shitpost at people they don't like.
>And those who don't want to discuss aren't worth discussing with. There's absolutely no need to feel so intimidated by potentially hostile replies.
Which often means watching threads you like get shitposted into the ground, or if you don't feel like trading insults all the way down, yielding the consensus to an entire pack of retards.
>it's about your own point of view.
If it's just about your own point of view you won the moment you saw somebody post on the internet and thought to yourself how dumb he was.
>>467997
>Literally everything you've mentioned also applies and is worse on communities with persistent identity.
What I've mostly been getting at is that the anonymous community is vulnerable to hijack. In forums with identities you can call people newfags. And, when you do, you'd be right. Maybe it'd be better if nobody called anyone else newfag, but that doesn't happen on 4chan; instead, anyone can call anyone newfag, which is sort of refreshingly liberating, but also means that anyone persistent and autistic enough can rewrite history for as long as they're ready and willing to shitpost like mad.
>>467914
>It is completely wrong,
No this is completely right.
Look at this picture. This is a picture of people with their faces clearly visible. This is a crowd of human beings with easilly identifiable markings. Their shapes, their colors, their noses, their eyes. They ALL have visible indicators of who each of them are. Do any of them really stand out? Are all of these people vainly trying to make a name for themselves by existing?
Apart from the admins, can you name even one Something Awful user? Can you name even one Tumblr user who wasn't already a celebrity? They all just fucking blend together. It's all the same fucking shit.
Then you've got fucking 4chan where everybody's wearing a mask except for like 3 or 4 people and those 3 or 4 people stick the fuck out. Yes. I agree completely. But they only stick out because they're different from the pack! When everybody's different, no one is.
>>467999
>But it only works because there wasn't a hyper-persistent, self-assured, agenda-pushing or merely delusional autist (or group thereof) attempting to impose their will on the board. Groups have succeeded in this before.
I think you're imagining things. Rather than a minority of invisible bogeyman who are forcing their opinion on others it's more likely that you simply argued against a majority opinion. Certain boards have majority opinions on certain subjects. This is however not an issue of the platform itself (and again: this is a lot more of an issue at places with persistent identities), but a consequence of demographics. If you try to tell /a/ that it's okay to have a 3D girlfriend or that it's wrong to fap to loli manga, you're going to meet resistance. If you try to tell /k/ that it would be fine to have gun control, you're going to meet resistance, and so on. I find that a lot more likely than believing in such tinfoil hat theories about the Jews pulling the strings in the back.
>4chan has a search function
4chan does not. There might be external archives but they're hardly relevant and not systemic. If you tried to dismiss someone's post by pointing to a post in an external archive he'd likely call you a faggot unable to make a point yourself and he'd be right in doing so.
>Even a "reasonably worded reply" can trigger people's red flags if you use the wrong words or make the wrong arguments.
Yes, so try not to do that. People need to lurk in order to know where the landmines are. Also, again: this also happens on other places of the internet. Even worse there, because there you're going to have a lasting reputation and if you say the wrong things at the wrong place you can kiss your account goodbye because nobody is going to take you seriously any more.
[to be continued]
continuation of >>468390
>Which often means watching threads you like get shitposted into the ground, or if you don't feel like trading insults all the way down
If people aren't in the mood for serious discussion, then it can't be helped. If you were right then you were right, people yelling at you isn't going to change that.
>If it's just about your own point of view you won the moment you saw somebody post on the internet and thought to yourself how dumb he was.
No, because dumb does not imply wrong. If you can't actually tell them where they're wrong and argumentatively corner them, then you haven't won simply because you believe you were smarter. You need to actually do it.
>What I've mostly been getting at is that the anonymous community is vulnerable to hijack. In forums with identities you can call people newfags. And, when you do, you'd be right.
And that's why these places are shit. Being new doesn't make you wrong. Calling someone a newfag on 4chan is a nice tactic to discredit someone, but it really doesn't work on people who aren't idiots. In lurking for a while you should become familiar with a board fast enough to not stick out as an outsider any more, no matter whether you've been here for years or only months.
>also means that anyone persistent and autistic enough can rewrite history for as long as they're ready and willing to shitpost
As I said earlier: I don't think it works like that. If you're alone, you're going to drown in the other posts. You need others who share your opinions. Certain views are more likely to stick since they resonate with the audience. In that regard, yes, certain points of view may indeed remain even if the threads in which they were uttered have long died, but this only works if people felt that they were right - and in order for that to happen they need to fall on fertile soil. Not just any idea grows on any board. You're not going to implant feminism on /r9k/, you're not going to implant pacifism on /k/, and so on.
continuation of >>468391
In the end, all these problems exist on places with persistent identities as well. And there they're worse, because of all the social dead weight that is carried throughout the conversations. On 4chan, conversation is stripped to its essence. Certainly you're not always going to get a nice conversation, since due to the lack of consequence people aren't always in the mood to take it seriously; the hurdle to participate is lower and there is no inhibition in regards to a reputation that could be lost. On the other hand, discussion is going to be unfiltered. There is no community filter marking people with a post-count or account creation date, with social relations within that community, with a posting-history you can look into, no karmic system that assigns credit points for people regarded nice or knowledgeable by the other users, no heavy handed moderation that tries to enforce a certain etiquette which usually doesn't make the tone more civil though but more passive aggressive, inviting people to insult each other in a more subtle manner instead of calling the other guy a faggot.
The idea that other places were better is ludicrous. They're usually worse, and they're systemically worse. Not because of the places itself or the specific demographics of the userbases but because of human nature. 4chan circumvents the shortcomings of human nature by no containing the queues for making social connections, forming hierarchies, etc. - and that's why it's generally a more preferable place for discussion.
>>469014
Only the person I was talking to.
