
4chan switches to HTML5/CSS3 (SFW) - ginko
https://boards.4chan.org/g/res/24506058
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huggah
This is the first time I've _ever_ seen (SFW) and 4chan in the same sentence.
And probably, one of the only places where I'd believe it.

~~~
deathwarmedover
Just glancing at the front page, the SFW boards on 4chan outnumber the NSFW
(18+) boards. Of the top 4 boards in terms of 4chan's traffic, only two are in
the 18+ category.

/b/ (the very NSFW board responsible for 4chan's notorious infamy) accounts
for 30% of 4ch's traffic but the next two most popular boards /v/ (video
games) and /a/ (anime and manga) are both SFW. Not that I would recommend
anyone to lurk 4chan at work.

The traffic and popularity figures I mention are on Wikipedia with citations:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan>

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huggah
I don't doubt that, but I never see links to the SFW boards. I almost
exclusively read or get sent links to /b/.

~~~
redthrowaway
Why would anyone ever send someone a link to /b/? Threads last half an hour,
tops. By the time the person sees the link, the thread has likely 404'd.

~~~
huggah
IM, not email.

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TomNomNom
One of the things that this does improve vastly is rendering in Chrome for
Android/ICS (and I assume, other mobile browsers). The old markup didn't scale
very well and made for a lot of horizontal scrolling.

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JonnieCache
Surely HN must now be next?

The cobbler's children have gone unshod so long!

~~~
coderdude
Every time a community I'm part of goes and redesigns their site it sucks
hard. Really hard. Please Paul, do not listen to the designgeneers on here.
This place is just fine the way it is!

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JonnieCache
_> This place is just fine the way it is!_

Can we at least compromise on unicode vote arrows?

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unconed
This isn't HTML5, this is HTML4 div and span soup with an HTML5 doctype. If
they really wanted clean markup, they'd use the proper elements everywhere.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
The "proper elements" seem to change every two or three of years. For people
getting real work done, especially if there's a lot of legacy markup involved,
it can be very challenging to stay up-to-date with what the talking heads have
decided is the "proper" way of doing things.

Just look at the <b> tag. 10 years ago, we used it frequently. Five years ago,
we were told NEVER to use it, and to use CSS instead. These days we're told
it's okay to use again, because now under HTML5 it has new semantic meaning.
Five years from now, by the time people have used it throughout their markup
again, the attitude will change and it'll once more be verboten.

~~~
unconed
So? There is a new version of the spec, go read it, learn how it's supposed to
work, then decide which parts you want to implement. Point is, there is not a
single HTML5 tag in 4chan's markup as far as I could see. They're completely
missing the point.

It's only the OCD CSS designers who treat every superfluous div and span as a
stain upon their work. The rest of us happily use the new meaningful HTML5
structure where appropriate, and keep sprinkling on divs/spans to help guide
the layout and style.

And FYI, the <b> tag wasn't supposed to be replaced by CSS, it was supposed to
be replaced by <strong> in cases where you wanted to highlight a span in text.
Because the act of highlighting text shouldn't be coupled to what it looks
like. Unfortunately, most people can't think in semantic terms and still write
web content like it's MS Word. That's why HTML is such a complex beast:
because we humans constantly give ourselves too much credit, and ultimately,
the web is an enormous hack job achieved through minimum effort.

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gee_totes
My question is WHY do they need to switch to HTML5? Does the complicated
layout and rich metadata of 4chan require something more advanced than HTML4?

~~~
mhd
According to the post, they got rid of a lot of spans and tables. Sure, they
probably could've done that while staying within HTML4/XHTML, but when you're
changing things around already, why not stick to the most recent standard?

~~~
ceol
They're using JavaScript onmouseover to show spoilers which can be
accomplished in straight CSS2. I assume that's for IE compatibility. They're
also still using <br/> tags in post comments, but I assume that's because it's
easier to write a nl2br converter than to intelligently parse comments with
more than two newlines into semantically-correct paragraphs.

I would have thought 4chan's thread format perfect to use the new <article>,
<header>, and <footer> tags.

~~~
mhd
Considering that we're talking about 4chan, this might count as heavy abuse of
the "article" tag…

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blendmaster
The change mostly benefits 4chan extension/userscript developers (like 4chanX)
and board archivers, which have to parse the DOM (the only public 4chan API)
back into data. If you look at the current markup (the new markup isn't live
yet), it's a total mess of tables and font tags.

Also as mentioned, it has a responsive layout for mobile screens.

I'm pretty sure the new markup is designed by moot (the 4chan admin/creator)
himself, so it's fairly clunky for 2012 (wrapper divs and spans everywhere,
inline javascript and styles), but again, it's still a vast improvement.

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chris_wot
It's buggy. For instance, I can see an anchor inside a span, but the span is
closed before the anchor is closed. Also, and admittedly nitpicking a little
here (don't hate me 4Chan! I come in peace...) but they are still using CDATA
in their script tags. If you are using HTML5, I don't think you still need to
support legacy browsers :-)

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sbierwagen
HTML5 is supposed to degrade gracefully. Nothing about it should instantly
break old browsers, so there's nothing really inconsistent about using CDATA
with HTML5.

~~~
chris_wot
Like I say: I'm nitpicking. To be honest, I'm not a fan of inline javascript.
But I'm not really 4chan's core audience - they may have a reason why they
have so much inline js.

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jmilloy
Why would any part of 4chan's audience care about such implementation details
(e.g. inline javascript)?

~~~
chris_wot
Why would they care about HTML5?

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redthrowaway
Interestingly, I think the real story here is how popular this mostly content-
free post is. makes me wonder how many HNers are closet /b/tards (I count
myself in that group).

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stu_wilson
HTML5 but the same old UI? What benefits it brings?

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masklinn
> What benefits it brings?

Much better behavior on smaller width (e.g. mobile phones), smaller, simpler
markup (so faster downloading, parsing & rendering), and likely increased
simplicity for extension developers.

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sbank
SFW, you say. I think I will play it safe by not clicking.

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samstr
Well done I guess... heh

 _slow clap_

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greghinch
I was expecting more Pedobear

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fadelakin
Since when did 4chan innovate?

