2ch

:This article is about the Japanese forum. See 2CH for the Sydney radio station.

Overview

2ch was opened in 1999 by Hiroyuki Nishimura, known simply as "Hiroyuki" (????). Today, most moderation on the forum is done by a voluntary group, self-elected and picked from 2ch users. 2ch itself is non-commercial and run by banner

Related Topics:
1999 - Hiroyuki Nishimura

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

advertisement fees and support from a hosting service company that provides specially priced inexpensive UNIX hosting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What is unique about this forum is its scale and its management style. It has more than 600 "board groups" (Japanese ita) each with its own categorical topic (ex. "Social News", "Computer", "Cooking"). Each "ita" usually has hundreds of "threads", which are actual discussion pages created by users for each detailed topic (ex. "Coming election in Tokyo-- 4th vote", "P4 vs. Athlon-- overheating 51 times", "Best wheat for making Pizza-- 3rd slice").

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2ch operates on innovative forum software which is a major departure from 1980s bulletin board systems or 1990s forums software such as vBulletin. Most importantly, nearly everything is done anonymously, and voluntarily. A posting in a thread will either "age" (bump) or "sage" (down) its position in the thread list; "saged" posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be "saged" if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling the thread at the top of the list.

Related Topics:
Bulletin board system - VBulletin

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Each thread is limited to 1000 postings at maximum, and must be created again (by some anonymous user, self-elected during discussion) to continue discussion. This prevents the rottening of old threads and keeps active topics refreshed. It also saves bandwidth, which is a major concern on a forum as large as 2ch. Old threads are moved to a paid archive, then eventually deleted.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

With the huge popularity of this forum, the style of web forums with anonymity, index, and sage features is now known as "2ch-style".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Anonymous posting

One of the most distinguishing features of 2ch is the complete freedom of anonymous posting. This is a great departure from American internet forums which require some form of registration, usually coupled with email verification for further identification of an individual. On 2ch, a name field is available but seldom used. Entering your name in the field either identifies you as a newbie who doesn't understand the forum, or an administrator, or someone attempting to be a Web celebrity, or you are typing in your name for no specific reason.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

From an interview with the founder in the Japan Media Review:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:Q: Why did you decide to use perfect anonymity, not even requiring a user name?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~