4chan
4chan is the asshole of the internet. To complete newfags who don't know what it is, put simply, 4chan is an anonymous imageboard forum. It is also the source of all or most internet memes. It was founded by moot in 2003. 4chan is the largest chan, and has the largest userbase and share of all the traffic. It is full of camerawhores, attention whores, and basic douchebags. It may the biggest imageboard, but is FAR from the best.
History[edit]
4chan was started in 2003. moot purchased the server space with his mother's credit card when he was fifteen, intending the site to be an American version of Futaba.
/b/[edit]
/b/ is the random board of 4chan, where any sort of faggotry goes on. It is the most popular board, dwarfing all the other ones in size. Currently, /b/ has amassed over 284130732 posts whereas many of the others have yet to break a million. (On an unrelated note, GETs are a popular pastime, such as getting the numbers 1111111, 10000000, 12345678, etc.) The content on /b/, as with all of the major chan boards, is periodically deleted automatically to save database strain.
Also, on /b/, there are NO RULES, LOL. Except no child porn and /i/nvasion. This consequently means mods can slap you with the banhammer for no good reason.
Insurgency[edit]
4chan is by far the largest force, and as the spawn point of all the other *chans, so therefore it has a good history. Most 4chan raids are zerg rush attacks on a target, like AsianBabeCams or Drawball. Sometimes, as during the Subeta Wars or Gamestop calls, 4chan is a massive epic force; correctly obtaining their assistance is tricky though. The problem with getting 4chan's help is twofold: First you need their interest. Everyone hated Gamestop and Subeta pissed them off, and the hivemind randomly chose Hal Turner and his ilk. However, most regular raids will be saged for "raidfags" which some people hate. The second problem is the banhammer; a larger and more legally scrutinized site, the 4chan staff can't just leave raids going, and so they ban hard. Major raids with great interest will overwhelm the mods, and often you might just escape their attention.
Getting 4chan involved in a raid is either going to completely fuck it up (if they listen to you at all) or turn it into something hueg, though the majority of the time, if its not their idea they'll not be interested; for example, during Operation MySpays when there were too many passwords and not enough people to fuck them up, the packs were posted on 4chan, and the threads were saged. On the other hand with stuff like Project Chanology they seem more than happy to help. They're incredibly fickle and usually disinterested, but on the rare occasion help from 4chan arrives, expect either a large amount of newfags fucking shit up or a giant shitstorm of destruction.
- A great example of proper 4chan involvement were the Gamestop Raids.
- An example of 4chan inaction is Operation MySpays
The reason for this: /b/tards consist of a mix of several groups of internet users. There may be a few talented /i/nsurgents who visit the board, but the rest of the users are basically civilians who lack either the technical skills and know-how for internet raids, the motivation to actually do something, or most often both. A group of raiders from 4chan is usually composed of a few proper /i/nsurgents leading an attack and (trying) to manage things, a few others following behind and doing the "grunt work", and the rest just blindly doing whatever the fuck they feel like until they get bored and leave. Think of it as a levee en masse; you have the potential to employ all of *chan's resources by getting everyone there involved, akin to large scale military conscription, but unless it's important you're not going to get anywhere.
