Talk:8chan

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" known for its role as a forum for child pornography"

4
2dgirlfan (talkcontribs)

This bit is really conclusory sounding. All the claims of it I'm aware of were spambots or journalists claiming loli was CP.

Derivative (talkcontribs)

I wonder if adding the word alleged would be a good solution

2dgirlfan (talkcontribs)

Definitely a start.

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Agreed. I was around for most of 8chan's alleged period of hosting said material, and to my knowledge, they did have a problem with spambots advertising CP sites (though I believe they voluntarily deindexed themselves). As to the other, that was pure nonsense fabricated by journalists with an axe to grind.

Suggest deletion

19
Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

I want to suggest deletion of the article. 8chan is a site which is most notable for being a hub for Nazis and other reactionaries (see the Wikipedia page), and I don't think it adds any value to discuss it here even if it's done so properly (mentioning the extremist connections of the site).

I feel like having this article here would mainly serve as a gateway for reactionaries to try to infiltrate the site and use it as a means to spread far-right propaganda. At best, this would lead to edit wars. At worst, this could lead to the site directly or indirectly causing real harm (as did 8chan itself when it inspired a mass shooting).

Deleting this page would be the easiest way to deal with this problem.

Alternatively, another route that might work would be to not list tropes for it and modify the description to talk about the white supremacy behind the site. I feel this is not the best solution as it might lead to edit wars (requiring moderation) and The Other Wiki is already covering the site much better than ATT ever could. (Which brings up another possibility: redirecting the article to the Wikipedia page of the same name, if that's possible.)

Onpon4 (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Let me make a few things clear.

First, it's a defunct site, yet it still had a profound impact a lot of media and copies of it's content exist in enough varying forms we can still discuss those archives. On those grounds, we'll keep the page.

Second, we're politically neutral here. Mere discussion of something is not endorsement of it, and we do not, by mere discussion, endorse whatever content 8chan had. As for any criminal speech that occurred there, that is deplorable, but if we are going to silence discussion of sites where criminal speech has been posted before, we should shutter our pages on Reddit and Facebook by the same measure.

Third, I once posted on 8chan. I had nothing to do with any "nazi" topics" there and I consider myself in opposition to such a ideology to begin with. Further, to characterize an image board that had all sorts of content as merely a hub for neo-nazis is deceitful at best. I know, I was there when it was still around, they had more than just that sort of content.

Finally, we are not memory-holing unpleasant things that had an impact on real-world media. Like it or not, it existed, it can still be discussed, and it had enough impact on real-world media (like a certain Law and Order SVU episode) it's discussion in terms of media impact is undeniably valid for discussion in terms of our site goals.

Ergo, unless you have better reasons to counter the ones given above, we are not going to burn this off our site and pretend it never happened.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

Isn't one of your policies to be respectful to your users when they disagree with you?

I see on your policy: "If it's not on the topic of creative works, it never belonged on the site in the first place." This is a real life thing we're talking about. That's Wikipedia's job. There's a good reason for that: the format of TV Tropes (and by extension ATT) is not a good place for covering real-life controversial topics.

You say you want to keep the site apolitical, but that's exactly why I suggested deleting this page in the first place. You can't be apolitical without also saying positive things about a notorious website which is primarily known for spreading white supremacy and antisemitism. But someone from this site wrote it that way (it wasn't imported from TV Tropes), so if I go there and edit it to talk about its deserved reputation, nothing whatsoever is going to stop alt-righters from just editing things in their favor again. It becomes an endurance battleground. This is why the Wikipedia page is protected; if it wasn't then alt-righters would be vandalizing the thing.

And let me make one thing clear: I never said that discussing the cultural effects of 8chan is wrong. But 8chan is not such a huge cultural phenomenon that it needs its own page. All its own page does is draw attention and sympathy for the site, or lead to edit wars, or both. Stormfront probably has had a noteworthy cultural impact, too. Does that need a page? I don't think so. It can be mentioned where relevant to culture and media, on trope pages' "real life" sections where appropriate and/or in pages about media that was inspired by it.

The same goes for the small amount of cultural impact that 8chan has had.

As for being "apolitical", allowing reactionaries to use your website as a platform is not apolitical. I can't speak to white supremacy, but I can speak to another kind of reactionary, as a trans person: TERFs.

TERFs are hostile to me as a trans person. These are people who will call me a "man", advocate for policies that are actually dangerous to me and other trans people, and when I speak up, they dismiss what I have to say as a "TRA", accuse me of "autogynephilia", and try to gaslight everyone by saying that "TERF is a slur" and accusing me of "misogyny". Any community that allows TERFs to do that is, through their inaction, supporting TERFs, because it creates a community that is hostile to someone like me. I'm forced then, every day, to justify my existence to them or accept a status as a lower-class citizen. Or, more likely, I am pressured to leave because I can't take the abuse.

You can't not take a side when it comes to hatred and bigotry. Bigots are stronger and more capable than those they hate, so inaction inevitably supports bigots.

Onpon4 (talk) 22:27, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

Pretending that they don't exist also helps them, though. If we keep our page, then we have some place to talk about them... (goes and looks at our page) ...and I see that we are in desperate need of talking about them; the page says nothing about conditions at that website since All The Tropes forked from TV Tropes nearly a decade ago.

Speaking for myself, I'd prefer to keep the page and moderate it if necessary. Get your concerns out into the light, where people can read them. Let people know that what that website's users say about themselves isn't the only interpretation of their words - Death of the Author applied to a website instead of to a single book.

Speaking as a moderator... we've promised that we won't censor for prejudice.

Derivative (talkcontribs)

The proposal would be in violation of Academic Freedom.

8chan does have a reputation for some of the more nefarious aspects internet wise. I don't see anything particularly wrong about the page in the current state, if it ever does become over reactionary in tone we can hopefully easily correct such.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

I could copy some choice passages from Wikipedia if you like. Or maybe just the introduction on Wikipedia.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

It would look like this:

8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. After going offline in August 2019, the site rebranded itself as 8kun and was relaunched in November 2019.

The site has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, racism and anti-Semitism, hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings. The site is also known for its role as a forum for child pornography, and as a result, it was filtered out from Google Search. Several of the site's boards played an active role in the Gamergate controversy, encouraging Gamergate affiliates to frequent 8chan after 4chan banned the topic. As of June 2019, 8chan was the 3,832nd most visited site in the world. As of November 2014, it received an average of 35,000 unique visitors per day and 400,000 posts per week.

In the aftermath of the back-to-back mass shootings on August 3 and August 4, 2019, in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, respectively, the site was taken off clearnet on August 5, 2019, after the network infrastructure provider Cloudflare stopped providing their content delivery network (CDN) service. Voxility, a web services company that had been renting servers to Epik, the site's new domain registrar, as well as Epik's CDN provider subsidiary BitMitigate, also terminated service. Shortly before the El Paso shooting, a four-page message justifying the attack was posted to 8chan, and police have stated that they are "reasonably confident" it was posted by the perpetrator.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

If it was my call, I'd find an appropriate trope to connect the third paragraph to, and put that in the trope list instead of in the description. I'd also leave off the site-traffic numbers - is there a need to inspire somebody else to increase that site's page hits?

Other than that, go for it.

Derivative (talkcontribs)

The traffic figures would be too insignificant for inclusion, being the 3000ish visited website if of no use to anybody.

Per rob's suggestion of finding appropriate tropes, I think both the second and third paragraph should be done that way, as opposed to just the third.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

Half done. (I added the first two paragraphs).

I can't think of a trope to connect the shooting to. Closest thing that comes to mind for me is "Noodle Incident" but that's not right. I'll add it if I think of one.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

I very much disagree about the second one. It's such a core part of 8chan's reputation that relegating it to a trope wouldn't give it the visibility it should have.

Derivative (talkcontribs)

Do we split the reputation from the GG part of the paragraph, considering our known stance per GG?

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

There's a known stance about GG here? That wouldn't be politically neutral.

Derivative (talkcontribs)

Known stance being more that I'm aware that ATT collectively hasn't been as censorious over GG as TVT has. Also the GG article used to be rather slanted pro-GG. Conflating far/alt-right and GG might be a self-injury in that respect. I know @GethN7 has been supportive of GG in the past.

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)

I don't buy that it's a self-injury. It's pretty much settled at this point that Gamergate was a far-right thing.

And for the record, I used to sympathize with it, too. The thing about the far-right is it's extremely subversive (not in the tropes way) and very good at creeping up on good people and radicalizing them. I know because it happened to me. I used to watch such figures as Sargon of Akkad and Blaire White. Even got myself banned from two IRC channels before I started to understand what was wrong with the stuff I was saying.

In fact this seems to me a pattern. Lots of perfectly good people have been pulled in by that stuff. Three Arrows even made a video about it (real good watch actually):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69obN625Fjs

Onpon4 (talkcontribs)
GethN7 (talkcontribs)

Going to make a few things clear. While I consider my political stances moderate in general, yes, I was pro-GG in the past. It's long over, I no longer care one way or the other.

That said, on the topic at hand, yes, we should note the controversy that got 8chan shut down, BUT WE WILL NOT EDITORIALIZE A POLITICAL SLANT. Yes, they got a bad reputation thanks to unsavory individuals generally associated with certain political stances, we can say that, but we'll leave it at that, any opinions on whether site in general was good or bad as a whole we'll not comment on, we can just state what can be objectively proven about it's controversy and leave it at that.

ATT is not going to be a battleground for one side or another on any topic, my personal politics are deliberately shelved while I'm here. I expect the same for all concerned, per policy on that topic.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I have to agree with Geth here, and not just because he's the wiki's founding admin. The more that we bring politics into an article or a set of articles, the more people will think that it's expected to bring politics into the articles. This wiki is All The Tropes, not All The Politics - in my humble opinion, discussion of politics here should only be in the context of discussing the tropes behind the politics.

And there are some tropes here where we've written (or re-written) descriptions to show that we don't agree with what they represent, without going into political discourse. We can do the same with pages about websites when necessary.

(Fair disclosure: I like to think of myself as a centrist, but that's a Canadian centrist; many Europeans would call me conservative and many Americans would call me liberal. I like it when people think for themselves instead of parroting a party line - any party line. So I'd prefer to share the facts and let people draw their own conclusions.)

Looney Toons (talkcontribs)

Why do discussions like this only erupt when I'm off doing holiday stuff? <grin> As a result of the speed at which this topic has progressed and evolved, just about everything I'd want to add, someone else already has, and all I can do is second the established stand of the wiki: state the facts, don't slant the coverage. The extreme ends of the spectrum won't change their minds no matter how we cast the article, and if we simply lay out what is, the ones in the middle can make reasonably well-informed decisions for themselves.

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