No.250
Despite all the amazing shit on the internet, we take it completely for granted. We stay in their PC puddles like facebook or twitter. We laugh at memes made by chans almost a decade ago, and never come up with anything original ourselves.
The tight knit community of old just don't exist anymore, well at least not on the surface web. It's just become to saturated with common people who can't utilize the internet. People who don't understand both how amazing and untamed the internet is.
Let me put it to you this way: The internet is like the wild west. The IRC's, the communities you speak of are the cowboys of the internet. The people on facebook and twitter are the carpetbagging city folk who want to make everything clean and safe and 'civilized'. They've built railroads (facebook, twitter, tumblr) and pulled barbed wire (PC,moderated forums, web monitoring by gov. agencies) across the internet to make it safe and cushy for them.
You and me are cowboy apprentices who came sometime before the railroads and barbed wire ended the west. Soon the wire will parcel the land and the cowboys can't roam anymore, and the internet will be parceled out like ranching land to big businesses (google, microsoft etc.)
Enjoy chans while you can. We all know the regeneration of this community is not good, the userbase will dwindle and die out.
No.251
>>250Do you think you're the first person to realise this?
The sentiment of that has been circulating for years on chans already.
The centralisation of the internet has it's advantages and disadvantages, but it is inevitable regardless of these.
It's no different from any form of growth, large communities are easy to find and join yet are fairly shallow due to the type of people who join them, but smaller ones are much harder to find or become a part of.
Things like chans won't die. They'll constantly phoenix. One will be fairly large, it'll burn, a bunch of new ones will rise out of the ashes and make lots of small communities. Practically fixing the centralisation problem.
The kind of places we like won't vanish, but the specific places may well.
No.252
Generally agree but I never used the IRC's, too personal for me. I don't like the feeling that every imageboard has a backstage circlejerk going on.
No.253
>>252>people with similar interests just talking about random shit>circlejerkWell that's not totally unreasonable.
No.254
>>250I agree with you wholeheartedly. But what can we do about it? The internet will only continue to grow as more and more young people are born in the US. Expanding markets like China and India will develop their own massive consolidated sites for their own usage. And in the far future even Africa will be part of the internet (the far far far future). It's not as though we could reduce the user count of the internet. Still, as long as we can have our ranches and cowboy towns, I'll be happy.
No.255
>>254>even Africa will be part of the internetWhat a horrible thought.
If you thought 12 year olds were bad, wait until africans start posting.
No.256
>>255Could be worse. What if all of Australia got a fiber connection.
No.257
>>256Or the Brazil.
>>254This is one motive behind the "internet.org". Facebook is putting a flag in a new market.
No.258
>>255Maybe you guys don't know but there is a number of African nations that are wired up. Nigeria comes to mind as a very technical advanced black African nation. Not to mention you also have nations like Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, and Kenya that are also wired.
No.260
>>258>a few relatively wealthy people in a nation of mud farmers have internet access>comparable to everyone having internetnah
No.261
I agree with the sentiment that this E3 was absolute shit. Hopefully that zelda game will make my Wii U useful for more than collecting dust.
No.262
>>261goddamit wrong thread
No.263
I was lurking Uboa and noticed a similar thread that was much more detailed and less emotionally loaded. From one post:
>This is a local problem though, which still comes from what I called "the chan decaying". As people feel less inclined in posting due to the high amounts of shitpost in the site, they end up leaving. I personally believe that the problem with ubuu is that it's filled with newfags who don't really understand the site + oldfags who, since they don't take it seriously anymore, post ironical content only now. The balance between interesting posting and shitposting has been broken. That's why we don't receive more interesting input. It'd be worthwhile to note that it's not completely a moderation problem, the userbase is to blame as well. We should have controlled that more, but I guess we let the chance pass.I touched on this on the thread that was sent to
>>>/hell/ but I feel validated that others feel similarly. I disagree with a lot of the notions in the Uboa thread and here that imageboards/chans are dying, but they've amassed a community of people who value sound byte posts and tired old post templates and their responses. I definitely feel that anyone who cares about the general community of imageboards should distance themselves from "shitposting" and creating threads that have blatantly loaded statements simply for guaranteed types of similar "shitpost" responses.
Other posters here and on Uboa were dropping phoenix metaphors. They're all well and good, but the firey rebirth of the phoenix on its death is activated as a response to an event. Better and comfier imageboards/chans start with better and comfier posts from you, the poster.
No.264
>>263> I definitely feel that anyone who cares about the general community of imageboards should distance themselves from "shitposting" and creating threads that have blatantly loaded statements simply for guaranteed types of similar "shitpost" responses.I think this is critical. A lot of posters don't seem interested in discussion anymore, especially on larger chans and larger boards. Look at any of the largest boards on 4chan, or even 8chan nowadays, and you'll find threads that are designed to produce a very specific kind of thread. And it's not even threads that are recurring, so-called generals, because they usually have discussion unless they turn into shitposting. I know exactly the kind of thread you mean. They have a basic template where the OP will post an image and a stock statement; every thing that follows is just as predetermined as the original post. These kinds of threads and posts swamp the board with low-quality threads that push out actual discussion. I think a lot of posters just do them out of habit or they just enjoy repeating the humor. In any case, I don't think imageboards are going to die any time soon. The format is too simple and there are too many people already attached to it. Hopefully chans do get more new blood that are willing to learn from their elders and carry on the banner. As larger chans become more inundated with shitposting I think more people will flock to smaller boards and smaller chans. I think there will also be another trend where there are certain threads where threads with more complex discussions will involve many posts collected over many days and there are other threads which are in a sense time-sensitive, similar to threads about streams or /tea/ in a sense, where posters just shoot the shit in a more informal way.
No.265
>>260I've seen some documentaries where they scavenge old pc's from landfills and refurbish them for personal use. Then they try to scam first-worlders by using emails, etc. Pretty funny.
No.266
>>265Could you please share?
No.267
>>250I'm flattered someone thought that my post on 8chan /r9k/ was worthy of bringing here.
No.270
>>268With all due respect sushi roll, that's a crock of shit.
As the total number of internet users has risen, so too has the number of imageboard autists.
No.271
>>270Traditional forums seem to be growing a lot less popular than the sites he mentioned, to me at least.
And in terms of new imageboard users, rather than autists there seems to be more normal people than ever. God knows, I'm one of them.
No.272
I'm not sure when I last went on a traditional forum, although that's only one person's experience.
Imageboards, in particular smaller ones, seem to be doing alright to me. Nobody has replicated 4chan in its days of glory (if those ever truly existed, and it's not just rose-tinted nostalgia), but I'm not sure that's needed. If there are communities where people have meaningful conversations and enjoy themselves, isn't that enough? Being too large kills quality discussion unless the staff AND the community are very good at setting the tone of the chan, and enforcing it. Being too small can also be fatal, because a small number of users leaving can result in the chan being too slow to retain the rest of the userbase. The trick is finding the balance, where good conversation happens, and where the community is large enough to handle fluctuations in size.
No.275
>>274If you tell a normie that you keep your identity seperate on the internet they'll look at you like you shot a kitten and lynched it's corpse at half mast over Buckingham palace.
The internet is inherently dangerous, because it's filled with people. Your experience is what you make of it.
Normies react to a different type of person that they don't like on here the same they do irl. They just try to get rid of them.
No.276
>>275>The internet is inherently dangerousIt's not though. It is not *possible* for the internet to pose any actual danger to someone, except by way of people on it bullying them IRL because of info disseminated over it. Which is, again, solved by seperating your identities. Which makes for a better culture on the internet and regarding it in anyways.
Otherwise, nothing is able to force itself on you. You can hide posts, block users, close tabs, leave chats, minimize windows, scroll down, etc etc. The worst case scenario is that some group raids a website or your profile, in which case ignore it till it blows over. There are a billion communities and websites on the internet, you can go ANYWHERE!
Its easy to try to bully someone or to post stuff someone might find very distressing, but its easier to just ignore it, hide it, or go somewhere else. Its not like the fucking real world, its like if in school you were getting bullied but you had a magic button that made someone disappear into nothing on a whim if they upset you. They can't come follow you and they can only come back later sometimes. You have ten kinds of that button on the internet.
You cannot have things forced on you on the internet, god. Danger is a bad metaphor.
No.278
>>273While it's not exactly positive, I don't think threads like these are a major issue, at least while they remain relatively polite and not toxic.
While I'm not opposed to having boards for such topics, I am kind of concerned about the site becoming just a feel good hug box.
That said, I realise some users might want to avoid that, so being able to filter /hell/ threads is reasonable too.
No.279
>>278I don't think a feel good hug box is such a bad thing.
I don't want roll's to go feeling like they can't discuss their concerns. That wouldn't be a very comfy place…
But I easily get distracted by this kind of argument and spend my time stressed, researching, typing and untyping responses. I know it's my problem. But I want to just avoid it in the fist place, so I want sushi to be free of political/internet political rants.
The way the op starts:
>Despite all the amazing shit on the internet, we take it completely for granted.Who the fuck is this talking about? Everyone I know loves the internet and want's to protect it.
>The tight knit community of old just don't exist anymore, well at least not on the surface web. It's just become to saturated with common people who can't utilize the internet.I agree learning to program is a nice, transformitive experience, and users of computers and the internet today are not forced to do it. But it's also a lot of work, and I don't think people being able to use the internet easily is a bad thing. Maybe they can't utilize it like a coder with scripts and google fu, but a half step to great is still good.
>People who don't understand both how amazing and untamed the internet is.Amazing yes. Everyone understands how amazing the internet is. Maybe they haven't studied EoCS, and learned how fast global communication can be built on top of base physical properties, but they do understand that technology is amazing.
Then 'untamed' and the cowboy metaphor?
This is stupid. The building up of technology and infrastructure like railroads is what made the internet possible. Infrastructure and easier living should be celebrated.
The rest of the thread is racism and hatred for the increasing connectivity that is the very point of the internet, before some rolls come to tell op that they are just wrong.
Actually, it's not even true that I want sushi to be free of political rants. I just want it to be free of bad, 'oh we are doomed for some reason' threads. If this was a researched biography of early hackers, or a discussion of the statistics and demographics of internet use then I'd be for it, but it's not. It's just weird fear mongering.
No.280
>>279I agree OP (and some other posters) were being pretty dramatic with all the metaphors and might have underestimated how casual people view the internet, but I think the core of his message was a somewhat valid concern about the decline of some internet communities and culture.
It might just be nostalgia that lets this issue resonate with me, but it's something that I do think is worth discussing.
I do think there is still plenty of interesting discussion, but I would admit it's not as easy to find on major sites like 4chan, partially (and this is my own guess) because the userbase has become so saturated, so the 'chan culture' declined. But within generals and some less popular boards, as other posters have mentioned, there is still a strong feeling of community that I feel many people understandably try to defend from the 'mainstream'.
I feel like these fears account for some of the elitism that really flared up in the past few years, and led to a lot of the un-comfy xenephobic behaviors. The racism is pretty disappointing though, and isn't really funny when it's indistinguishable from all the other semi-ironic political crap that's everywhere now.
As much disdain there is for the whole idea of chans as a 'secret club', to some people like me it really was something special, and ceased to be special when it hit the mainstream. Again, this is just my random thoughts and experiences.
No.281
>>280>I feel like these fears account for some of the elitism that really flared up in the past few years, and led to a lot of the un-comfy xenephobic behaviors. The racism is pretty disappointing though, and isn't really funny when it's indistinguishable from all the other semi-ironic political crap that's everywhere now.>As much disdain there is for the whole idea of chans as a 'secret club', to some people like me it really was something special, and ceased to be special when it hit the mainstream. Again, this is just my random thoughts and experiences.I wholeheartedly agree. While it might seem foolish at first glance, I kind of miss the old "sushi rollymous is legion" thing, minus the angst angle. It was a really unifying idea that permeated race, religion, and gender in the sole idea of being a united faceless entity of internet weirdos, script kiddies, anime and video game fans, etc. "Hivemind" and "groupthink" have pretty negative connotations but *chan without identity politics differentiated it from reality and separated it from the rest of the internet from its inception to somewhere around 201X.
I've been frequenting a few smaller imageboards outside of sushi and I have to say that interesting and active discussion these days is particularly hard to find. I'm not a fan of the 8gag posting culture that seems to be seeping everywhere where people make empty, angry/bitter/holier-than-thou posts that somehow are supposed to be regarded as objective truth because of that holier-than-thou attitude. Somewhere along the line, being rambunctious and wild on chans (mainly 4) turned into being an obnoxious, predictable bore who could only babble about botnets and rattle off canned "[x] is spyware/a meme/for freetards/etc." phrases.
I don't think the idea of the "secret club" is something to be looked at with disdain, and I don't think it ever was supposed to be. 4chan was an incredible place when I was lurking in '06 before Chanology hit; I had never been on a website like it despite being a YTMNDer before and thinking I was in some secret part of the internet while there. Both of those websites to this day have never been replicated for me in terms of sheer uniqueness of the userbase, and every day I'm a little more sad that the pendulum of life hasn't swung back to those wonderful, eccentric people and times.
It's late as I'm writing this but reading the new posts in this thread, especially yours, got the gears turning.
No.283
I agree that it's gotten hard, but I'm still a bit optimistic about it all, and I like to think this centralization will end some day. Consider stuff like neocities, the *chan fragmentation that's been going on lately, people getting savvy about privacy, and tiredness in general from all the noise going on. I like to think we're still passing through, and in a few years things will be better.
After all, we're in here, aren't we? musing about how to fix this, so not all is lost.
No.1269
>>270I think that it may be the case that imageboard userbases are growing, but not as fast as userbases for more "mainstream" or "consumer" websites, this giving the impression that they are shrinking (because their proportion is shrinking, even if the absolute amounts aren't).
There may also be a level of imageboard/small chan userbases being "spread thin", as the sheer number of chans increase and communities fragment and splinter.
Ultimately though, without actually looking at data, all of this is just conjecture. (And I think it would actually be an interesting project to acquire and organize all of that data, though some of it is probably hard to obtain. How to you measure the number of unique visitors to imageboards in general, for example?)
