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The Internet The Media News

Moot Retires From 4chan 184

Posted by samzenpus from the fare-thee-well dept.
vivaoporto writes Moot bids his final farewell as the administrator of the (in)famous imageboard. The full resignation letter can be read on the site blog (it's cool, it's SFW) but for those who are not brave enough to dwell in the "underbelly of the internet" here are some excerpts: "I founded 4chan eleven and a half years ago at the age of 15, and after more than a decade of service, I've decided it's time for me to move on. 4chan has faced numerous challenges... [B]ut the biggest hurdle it's had to overcome is myself. As 4chan's sole administrator, decision maker, and keeper of most of its institutional knowledge, I've come to represent an uncomfortably large single point of failure. I've spent the past two years working behind the scenes to address these challenges,... [T]he site isn't in danger of going under financially any time soon,... and while I've still been calling the shots, I've delegated many of my responsibilities to a handful of trusted volunteers, most of whom have served the site for years. That foundation will now be put to the ultimate test, as today I'm retiring as 4chan's administrator.... I look forward to one day returning to 4chan as its Admin Emeritus or just another Anonymous,... I'm humbled to have had the privilege of both founding and presiding over what is easily one of the greatest communities to ever grace the Web."
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Moot Retires From 4chan More

Moot Retires From 4chan

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  • Really

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      check them dubs

      (sorry- just seemed appropriate)

  • Fuck Moot and fuck 4chan. Yep. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @01:14PM (#48866967)

    I guess he's going back to reddit.

  • one of the greatest communities to ever grace the Web.

    lolwut

  • [T]he site isn't in danger of going under financially any time soon

    That's a real shame.

    • 4chan is a cesspool of filth

      but much like charlie hebdo or hustler, i'm glad it exists

      it shows the society that tolerates it has moral superiority. i'm deadly serious

      the thoughts that go on in media like this exist everywhere in the world

      but by tolerating it, rather than repressing it, we show that we are confident, secure, and open minded

      elsewhere in the world, where people often talk a lot about their "morality" in comparison to the "decadent" west, they have no problem using violence to repress simple human nonsense that is without real consequence. violence? in response to stupid immature shit? that's not morality at all. that's insecurity, weakness, lack of faith

      4chan /b/ is a pile of useless crap. there is no reason to ever visit it unless you are an immature douchebag

      but if any of it actually makes you feel insecure, or makes you angry, you have a problem. you are the immoral weak person with immoral thoughts. if it drives you to violence, YOU are what is wrong with the world

      human nature has many good and bad aspects. the point is rise above your baser instincts. not go to war with them. like any troll, to fight filth simply feeds it, and announce to the world that it is your equal or it is your master

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I'm an immature douchebag you insensitive clod!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >cesspool of filth
        4chan is a mirror. what you are looking at is unfiltered humanity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rot26 ( 240034 )
        Come for the filth, stay for the hivemind. An amazing amazing thing.

      • Re:The least welcome news (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @03:28PM (#48868611)

        but by tolerating it, rather than repressing it, we show that we are confident, secure, and open minded

        So, what does it say when sites across the internet crack down on Gamergate discussion more than they crack down on gore, piracy, and neo-nazis?

        Sorry but if you're coming from the position that 4chan is some haven of free speech, you're wrong. If you think the internet as a whole has fulfilled the promise of being a forum for free assembly and open discussion, you re doubly wrong. The internet has become an intertwined collection of hugboxes, propaganda outlets, and viral marketing solutions, all held together by increasingly valueless data mining operations.

        The future of the internet was decided in 2014 and it is to be a 1-way medium, Cable 2.0, with the ability to post (moderated) content. The moment you post anything actually uncomfortable to anyone who even half matters, and especially the moment you believe the internet is a force for empowering the masses, is the moment you will discover that websites remain the private property of a privileged few.

        The revolution will not be online.

        • The internet has become an intertwined collection of hugboxes, propaganda outlets, and viral marketing solutions, all held together by increasingly valueless data mining operations.

          Hi. There are no cookies : http://gopher.floodgap.com/ove... [floodgap.com]

        • If "websites remain the private property of a privileged few", it's a good thing they're so stupidly cheap to buy. Costs more to do laundry than to host your own site and do whatever the fuck you want with it, moderation-free.

      • I myself find 4chan to be one of the few communities where people are not afraid of their tastes and fetishes; it's refreshing to visit something where people have opinions other than the society-sanctioned politically correct ones.

        Sure, there is racism, probably some hate speech too, unusual graphic content, and plenty of offensive things, some of which might be illegal. But it's all ephemeral as boards quickly move around to new topics.

  • What's really behind this (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The presidential election is next year. He needs to get ready.

  • Can they do CSS properly at 4chan?

  • 4Chan: Still better (Score:5, Informative)

    by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @01:24PM (#48867103)

    than /.Beta

  • Sounds like a moot point (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk

  • Moot can't triforce.

  • Sad to hear this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @01:31PM (#48867159)

    I know everyone loves to hate on 4chan but it is one site I enjoy visiting. Most sites are way too PC and monitored and I liked the anarchy and randomness of 4chan. I hope this doesn't bring about its demise.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's been apparent for years that moot had little interest in the monster he created other than as a line on his resume. This is just recognizing the reality: he no longer runs the show and hasn't for some time. The benevolent neglect he left the site is about to change, and that's something we certainly can start worrying about--now we can be certain that the drama in /v/ over Gamergate censorship was not his doing.

    • Hate to tell you son, but I think that's exactly what's going to happen to 4chan. I give it 3 months before it completely self-destructs in some way or another. Most likely it'll end up subscription-only based, with traceable usernames and all that crap, like any other website. It's almost totally mainstream for quite some time now anyway, this is just the straw that breaks the camels' back. Might even just completely fold and go away (and nothing of value was lost). Enjoy it while you can, it won't be arou

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I know everyone loves to hate on 4chan but it is one site I enjoy visiting.

      After all the censorship there I have left 4chan for greener pastures.

      Most sites are way too PC and monitored and I liked the anarchy and randomness of 4chan. I hope this doesn't bring about its demise.

      The rampant PC / SJW moderation has led to its demise. #GamerGate marks the 3rd mass exodus from 4chan (halfchan). If you want a chan community where the users manage the boards (and create new boards to migrate to if they get censorious mods) then try out infinite chan [8chan.co], which is now the new "hive of scum and villany". Take /gamergate/ for example, where we fund feminist gamejams for girls, fund anti-harassment charities, promote real

  • Sites like this are often infiltrated by CIA to monitor peoples thoughts and track users.

    • Re:Probably sold out to CIA a long ago (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @02:19PM (#48867711) Journal

      You know, I wonder about that. I'm not sure the CIA has to infiltrate anywhere to monitor peoples' thoughts in an age when everyone has developed a compulsion to share each and every one of their thoughts with the world. I mean, ISIS has twitter accounts for chrissake. Even Adam Baldwin has a twitter account, so at this point, the bigger problem is not collecting those "thoughts" but turning them into information that can be acted upon and ignoring the trolls and shitposters.

      [true story: my favorite old keyboard died the other day. I didn't mention it to anyone, didn't tweet or email about it or put it on facebook. Not a word. Didn't search for new keyboards online or visit any stores that sell keyboards. Just plugged in an old cheapie I had laying about the house. It happened about 8:30am. By noon, I was getting targeted ads for these fancy new mechanical keyboards. Coincidence? Maybe. More likely, the NSA/Google industrial complex has set up mobile Stingray targets to monitor my thoughts. The bastards.]

      [here, watch this. Hey CIA, I'm thinking of a number between one and ten. What is it?]

      • Re:Probably sold out to CIA a long ago (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @02:22PM (#48867759)

        Three.

        - the CIA

        And by the way, your fly's open.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Do you have a smartphone? This has happened to me on Android, where I'm talking (as in talking in the room while the phone is in my pocket) to someone about buying something and after a while I start getting related ads and search suggestions. Creepy shit

      • Even Adam Baldwin has a twitter account

        I don't get the "Even" part of that. Why is that surprising?

        (To others, he's not one of THOSE Baldwins.. This is the one who was on Firefly.. At first I thought it was the religious nut of the Baldwin brothers, who might have said something anti-twitter at some point.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z80a ( 971949 )

        When posting on facebook, you're unwillingly playing a sinister version of akinator that can use your unrelated data to guess things about you, and probably you simply "gave away tips that your keyboard died" that were picked by the neural network.

      • Neat story, but I wonder if it was simply a case of your mind recovery from ad blindness. Perhaps those ads were there all along and you just didn't see them until yours broke and you had keyboards on the mind.

        Sort of like when you learn a new word and then hear it 4 times that day.

    • 4chan moves so fast that it would require a disproportionately large team to track what happens on it.
      There is also a lot of specific vocabulary and way of communicating on 4chan to be able to understand what's going on, but I suppose that after enough time reading everything you'd grasp it.

  • And ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    nothing of value was lost.

  • It is hard not to associate this with 8chan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @02:24PM (#48867789)

    ... I don't want to kick a man while he's down and it is nice that he's not taking any parting shots at anyone as he goes. But I think the stress of running the community was that at some point he forgot the point of 4chan.

    4chan was the place you could say ANYTHING. People would go on the most insane rants on that site. Say some positively evil things. And judge that as you will, there are very few places on the internet that are well known that you could get away with that sort of thing. And was sort of cathordic in its wild west post apocalypic simplicity.

    4chan was chaos and anarchy. It was full of people rhetorically stuffing kittens with explosives and then offering them to people with grin. The trolling was incredible.

    But there was also a savage beauty to the place.

    At some point, I think Moot tried to civilize it. And that was a huge mistake. These people... were already civilized. They spent every day being civilized and polite people going throughout their lives. And 4chan was a place people could go to be wild... people would spray paint their faces blue and randomly shiv someone because that was what they felt like doing. Wrong? that sort of thing is in us at some level. Might as well let it out on an internet forum rather then elsewhere.

    Anyway, lets hope either 4chan returns to what it was or 8chan picks up the slack.

    Those that say "8chan has something in it I don't like"... that's the point. Its there because it can't be anywhere else. Which is what 4chan used to be.

    • rotten.com still exists...

      • that place always had a different vibe... Rotten is more cesspit of hell rather then the anarchy of 4chan. 4chan would have people going just to look at all the weirdos. Or possibly dragon slay some crazy people. But rotten was pretty much demons and devils 69 skull raping each other... and apparently loving every horrifying minute of it.

        I believe rotten is what gave rise to the term "eye bleach" and "mind bleach" because you'd see something so disturbing that you needed it erased from your life to carry on

    • 8chan doesn't discuss anime, video games, or japanese culture, which are arguably the most interesting boards of 4chan.

      • Probably because those topics aren't banned or heavily censored on 4chan yet. 8chan has the boards on 4chan that moot or his admins fucked with... had he left them alone 8chan wouldn't exist.

    • 4chan was the place you could say ANYTHING. People would go on the most insane rants on that site. Say some positively evil things. And judge that as you will, there are very few places on the internet that are well known that you could get away with that sort of thing.

      "Very few places" here being slashdot, youtube, reddit, twitter, and pretty much everywhere else on the internet...

      • "Very few places" here being slashdot, youtube, reddit, twitter, and pretty much everywhere else on the internet...

        You can't get modded into oblivion on 4chin, just drowned out by the sea of other people shitposting. It's more like the old days of /. where everyone browsed at 0 with the GNAA, hot grits, goatse, etc. except turned up >11.

        • yep. I preferred it.

          If you can't handle the occasional goatse then just get off the internet. It is one of the nice things about communities like that in that they self filter out whining babies that lose their shit at anything.

          If you just pulse something horrible every now and again they all leave and what is left is ironically more mature. The whiners talk about civility but it really just boils down to an endless list of things they expect everyone to do. Go to tumblr to find out where they all went appa

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      I was always disappointed with 4chan. It's the western version of the Japanese 2ch forum. 2ch is anarchic and there is massive trolling, but there is also a lot of really good discussion, information and socialising. You can read about it on Wikipedia.

      4chan never reached that level of greatness. It's had a few moments, but never anything like 2ch.

      • There are lots of sites that have good discussions. the point of 4chan was not the discussions but the anarchy. And it had that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 )

      moot is now free to join Sherrod DeHippo in obscurity.

  • Good fucking riddance

    Regardless, 4chan left 4chan months ago when he sold out to his new-media fuck buddies, I suppose you can't go on doing it for free for ever.

  • So who runs 4chan now? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There's a 4chan foundation and an LLC. If moot is stepping down from it, who runs the show now? I don't see anyone discussing this.

    And here is some context that I don't see anyone discussing either: moot was demanding copies of his moderators' photo IDs [archive.today], and that caused a bit of a revolt. There is also a rumor that his computer was hacked and all of his moderators' IDs were leaked onto the darknet. No idea if that's true or not.

    Another question, where was moot getting his shitty legal advice that led him to

  • What about his interview? (Score:3)

    by flogger ( 524072 ) <non@nonegiven> on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @03:44PM (#48868779) Journal
    Wasn't he going to answer some questions from back in September? [slashdot.org]

    I guess those questions won;t get answered now.

  • Tick-tock (Score:3)

    by Wuhao ( 471511 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @04:03PM (#48868995)

    Now even moot is too old for 4chan. Fuck me, how time flies.

  • What's scary is now 4chan is going to be ran by people who grew up with 4chan as a constant presence in their life. If you thought the website was bad now, wait until it's ran by kids who believe "anonymous is legend!!!!!!!!" is something other than a joke.

  • What's 4chan?

  • Oh wait, he still won't be old enough. Nevermind. I should have done something cool with my childhood... sigh.

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