2CH
2CH for the Sydney radio station.
2ch (2ちゃんねる pronounced "ni-channel"),
opened by Hiroyuki Nishimura in 1999, is one of the largest Internet forums
in the World (largest in Japan). With over 10 million visitors
every day (as of 2001), it is gaining significant influence in
society, approaching that of traditional mass media such as TV,
radio and magazines.
What is unique about this forum is its scale and its management style.
It has more than 100 "board groups" (Jp. 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
anonymous visitors for each detailed topic (ex. "Coming election in Tokyo,
4th vote", "P4 vs. Athlon, overheating 51 times", "Best wheat for making
Pizza, 3rd slice"). Every posting in a thread has an "age" (up) and "sage"
(stay) attribute, and once posted with "age" attribute (default), that
thread goes to the top of the recent active thread in its board group. 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. Most "old" threads will be stored in a thread archive after deprecation
for future reference. Nearly everything is done anonymously (and voluntarily).
With the huge popularity of this forum, this "thread floating with pushout style"
style of web forums is now known as "2ch-style".
Several important and/or well-known social issues (incidents, social
movements) are known to have relation with this forum, and due to
early shocking events (murders, etc. See Neomugicha incident),
this forum is somewhat acknowledged as "underground-ish" despite
its wide acceptance, especially in the younger generations. On the other hand, these
incidents helped 2ch to have huge publicity through mass-media coverings.
2ch had been participating in various voluntary services like the ASCII Art)", "2ch Flash" are examples
of such culture. Many virtual characters, such as Mona, Onigiri
have evolved out from these creations, and are now acknowledged as mascots
representing the whole community.
Although its scale and broadness of topics is uncomparable, some may
find 2ch to have cultural similarities with Slashdot. They both
have grown out from small, niche communities (subculture, underground, technology, etc), and have become so large that they are not "niche" anymore.
One notable difference is probably the policy against trolling/off-topic posting: while Slashdot tries to "moderate out", 2ch "embraces" it.
Due to this policy, troll/off-topic posting in 2ch has made its own
advancement and are now a part of 2ch culture. However, messages spamming and flooding the thread with ASCII Art is erased. Some may also draw resemblances to Something Awful.
To this date, the official owner of 2ch is Hiroyuki Nishimura, known as "hiroyuki" (ひろゆき). But most daily
management is done by an external voluntary group, self-elected and picked
from 2ch visitors. 2ch itself is non-commercial and run by banner
advertisement fees and support from a hosting service company that provides
specially priced inexpensive UNIX hosting.
Due to its chaotic nature and hugeness, it is difficult to describe or define
this emerging community. Several movements to self-describe this community
have been running, and so the reader is recommended to visit these materials.
4chan, an English website based around Japanese content, now has anonymous message boards similar to 2ch.
See also: Futaba Channel, Mona Font, List of 2ch Boards
Terminology
- Abone (Jp. あぼーん) - "to delete a post". Posts are deleted in two ways: normal Abone and invisible Abone (Jp. 透明あぼーん). Any posts deleted as normal Abone are replaced by a special post, whose subject, date, and body are all "あぼーん".
- Age (pronounced "ah-gay") - from Japanese ageru (上げる "to raise"), refers to replying to an especially noteworthy or neglected post in order to move it to the top of the topic list (equivalent to the English bump)
- Cap - A special, custom tripcode used by website administrators and especially famous people chosen by the webmasters.
- Kotehan - from Kotei Handle Name lit. fixed HN either with or without a trip.
- Mona - an ASCII art character
- Giko Cat (Giko neko) - another ASCII art character
- Off Kai - an offline meeting by anonymous posters
- Sage (pronounced "sah-gay") - from Japanese sageru (下げる "to lower"), refers to replying to an undesirable post using the word "sage" in order to increase the number of replies without age-ing the post. This prevents the thread from having lamer in it.
- Trip - a cryptographic hash created from a password, used to allow a user to "sign" their posts while remaining anonymous.
- ">>" - Often followed with the numeral of the intended post to mean reply or follow up. 2ch automatically makes a link.
Common abbreviations and phrases
- Chu or Chubou (厨 or 厨房) - An intentional misuse of kanji for "中坊" (a middle school kid), it refers to those posters who posts without reading any of rules. Also refers to those who engage in flaming and spamming.
- Haahaa ((;´Д｀)ﾊｧﾊｧ) - Generally used after anything cute in the spirit of Moe.
- Kami (神 or ネ申) - Someone who gives out valuable informations very fast. See Kami.
- Kita!! (ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━!!) - Literally, "It's here!", it is generally used to as a big exclamation mark.
- Natsuchu (夏厨) - Someone who appear in the Summer break and make ridiculous posts and acts Chu. Those appearing in winter is called Fuyuchu (冬厨).
- Nullpo (ヌルポ) - A parody of the computer debugging output "Null pointer exception" causing the program to crash. It must be immediately fixed and will be followed by "ガッ", a sound of hitting something because this usually does the job in fiction.
- Uhho! (うほっ) - Originally from a gay manga, used somewhat like Haahaa and Kita!! but when the post is macho.
- w - A single letter substituting for warai or laughing. Added to mean that the poster is joking or thinks he made a funny remark.
