Does anyone really think this or 4chan can ever achieve anywhere near the size and diversity of 2ch? Or even enough to compare with a large forum? Reading this interview, http://www.ojr.org/japan/internet/1061505583.php it appears that 2ch was initially built for news discussion and reporting, rather than general chatter.
Could we even deal with the server load should the userbase increase that much? Bandwidth is a lot more expensive here than in Japan.
It also seems like there weren't a lot of online communities at the time 2ch started. Over here there are many large general interest forums already, not to mention hundreds of small special-interest boards. At this point we're a mere curiosity, a drop in the bucket.
I doubt 4ch will ever reach the level of 2ch. I was under the impression that the original philosophy of 2ch was to make a website where the content is completely provided by the users, and with the anonymity it could truly reflect the thoughts of the users at the time.
It seems like as far as news or politics go, blogs are popular among English speakers, or other sorts of forums where they can take credit. The sheer amount of posting with tripcodes on this site compared to the amount on the Japanese 2ch site shows the difference in mindset. People are very interested in becoming popular or well known for something on the internet, so they want to take credit for all their posts. One of my favorite aspects of 2ch is all users are equal in name and faceless, ageless, etc. They are only judged by the content they post, it's impossible to discriminate in other ways since you don't know who's saying it. In other words, the words they say need to speak for themselves, rather than any status.
But, in any case, the people who are attracted to this site are going to mainly be those interested in Japanese culture, especially 2D animangagame culture, since 4chan is so popular and this site will be forever associated with it due to that. But of course, it's how we, the users, chose to post and advertise the site that decides what focus it will grow into.
Though, with the logging of IP adresses and rules against posting anything illegal, I can't see all the controversial things happening that did on 2ch (announcement of murders, suicide, leaking names and info illegally, ect)
Just my random 2 cents. I personally still enjoy this site, and am interested to see where it goes. I hope we can try and shape our own site rather then mimic 2ch exactly, though I think we can learn from them as well and adapt to make a site useful to English speakers worldwide.
Here is another link to an article on 2ch:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/international/asia/09toky.html?ex=1399435200&en=c8bb27cc740761e0&ei=5007&partner=USERLAN
> The sheer amount of posting with tripcodes on this site compared to the amount on the Japanese 2ch site shows the difference in mindset. People are very interested in becoming popular or well known for something on the internet, so they want to take credit for all their posts. One of my favorite aspects of 2ch is all users are equal in name and faceless, ageless, etc.
There are a lot of people posting with tripcodes on 2ch, too. They are just few in ratio to those who don't - and that's just due to the nature of Japanese society in which you have to be very careful about what you state publically when you are not anonymous. 2ch posters tend to post anonymously BECAUSE they cannot express themselves openly in other ways & media.
But yeah, mimicing 2ch in its entirety was never a top priority of 4-ch. It's to provide the same kind of functionality. It's entirely up to the users if they want to take up on that. Everybody has their own preferences. Myself, I like to do both: Post anonymously (most of the times) and with tripcode when I see the need / use for it. In the end, natural development will show how the whole Anonymous philosophy will catch on or not. But basically, I think it's good to have the options for both.
> Though, with the logging of IP adresses and rules against posting anything illegal, I can't see all the controversial things happening that did on 2ch (announcement of murders, suicide, leaking names and info illegally, ect)
AFAIK, 2ch logs IP, too, and also has rules and policies (some also based on law) that are actually enforced by moderators.
Different boards on 2ch also handle these matters differently. Some boards have ID codes next to the posts, some don't. So this identity thing is not an entirely homogenous matter on 2ch itself.