
Chris Poole - doppp
http://avc.com/2015/09/chris-poole
======
fein
Huge respect for Chris, and I'm very happy he's feeling that sense of relief.

I took a shot at moderating a few smaller subreddits, and managed to find
myself hating every moment spent doing it. It sure makes the majority of
internet look like selfish ingrates, even though it's usually just a vocal
minority.

I just stay away from Reddit now for the most part; primarily due to seeing
the kind of place you get when the barrier for entry is non existent.

~~~
janny_throwaway
>primarily due to seeing the kind of place you get when the barrier for entry
is non existent.

you think reddit's bad, try 4chan!

I was 4chan "janitor" (lesser-mod) for 18 months or so and I agree, these
sorts of positions really twist your perception of the community you're
moderating. When you're buried in reports -- and these are 4chan reports,
which means not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc. -- it becomes all too
easy to dole out harsh penalties to people who may have just made an honest
mistake. I essentially stopped browsing 4chan for fun; I saw it only through
the lens of the janitor interface.

Chris, to his credit, frequently expressed his gratitude to the volunteer
staff for doing what he knew was a thankless, soul-crushing job. He wondered
aloud why we didn't go volunteer our time at a puppy shelter or something
instead. I'm sure he asked himself that question too.

I'm no longer in that position; I outed myself as a janitor and was
immediately terminated. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really suited
for these sorts of roles. Having access to privileged information and special
powers makes me uncomfortable. The good news is that I've recently returned to
4chan as a regular, anonymous user, and I'm really enjoying it. I hope Chris
experiences something similar. He deserves it.

~~~
irl_zebra
"not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc." (I'm assuming cp means children)

"The good news is that I've recently returned to 4chan as a regular, anonymous
user, and I'm really enjoying it."

I've never visited the site, and really don't want to. So maybe I'm missing
something, but why would you want to associate yourself with a place like
that? It seems like even spending time there as an anonymous user would change
your perception of the world for the worse. I see people post screenshots on
Reddit sometimes and it seems pretty deviant.

~~~
janny_throwaway
Unlike reddit, 4chan is not a popularity contest. There are no likes or
upvotes that dictate what you see; everyone in a thread sees the same content.
Furthermore, there are no persistent identities, so you have no way of gauging
the value of someone's post other than by examining its content. I think this
dynamic is what made 4chan such a creative force: the only way for a post to
"live" longer than one thread was to make it memetic, remixable, broadly
applicable.

What I really like about 4chan nowadays is the pace. When a new episode of my
favorite show is out, or when the Super Bowl is on, or when a presidential
candidate says something stupid, I know there will be a thread about it. At
times, it's almost like we're all in the same room together. Having browsed
for 7 years now, it really does feel like home to me.

~~~
moron4hire
I don't think the lack of upvotes means there isn't still a popularity contest
going on. There is still a lot of posting done just to try to get as big of a
reaction as possible out of people. Some people even talk about their activity
on 4chan through other side-channels, like IRC or even in-person. People brag
about their exploits to other people. It may not have a number attached to it,
but it's really nothing _but_ a popularity contest.

~~~
hyperion2010
I have one word for you.

Unidan.

------
Dragonai
I think it's pretty safe to say that no one's _really_ been through an
experience remotely similar to Chris's. There's no community like 4chan, with
respect to both its scale and its pervasiveness in both internet and real-life
culture. Being at the heart of such a community through its high and low
moments is an enormous load to bear, and Chris shouldered that responsibility
for 12 years without buckling.

Huge congrats to him and I wish him the best.

~~~
dang
This is a perceptive point. Chris' achievement is deeply impressive in far
from obvious ways. The more one learns about it, the more impressive it gets.
It's pleasing to see a post honoring him do so well here. Good luck, Chris!

------
542458
I don't blame Chris for selling in the slightest and I'm happy that he's been
able to let go, but I kind of wish he had found somebody a little more
likeminded to take over the place. Chris has always been an excellent citizen
of his own community, and always seemed to really "get" what made a lot of the
community work. Other than one incident at the end of his tenure, "m00t" was
always very well-loved (for somebody on a site that hates everything), and
understood how to shape vibrant communities with a fairly light hand. Hiroyuki
Nishimura's past doesn't really suggest the same sort of community-mindedness.
Maybe with 4chan's current size that sort of involvement is irrelevant, but I
hope it won't negatively affect the site.

~~~
monaway
>Hiroyuki Nishimura's past doesn't really suggest the same sort of community-
mindedness.

That's putting it lightly.

[http://www.anonymous-japan.org/fake2ch/](http://www.anonymous-
japan.org/fake2ch/)

Japanese netizens absolutely loathe him on a level that makes westerners'
mixed feelings toward moot seem glowing in comparison.

[https://imgur.com/a/o8ruh](https://imgur.com/a/o8ruh)

Here's what the current lead developer of 2ch (@CodeMonkeyZ) thinks Hiroyuki's
plans for 4chan are:

[http://pastebin.com/8bfsk6jP](http://pastebin.com/8bfsk6jP)

~~~
pervycreeper
To be fair, most of the major internet companies intend to monetize your data.
This doesn't sound much worse, even _if_ these allegations are true.

~~~
nyolfen
running a deep state culture-sculpting psyop in addition to monetizing user
info is a little bit more than generic ad profiling

------
caractacus
I've often linked Chris Poole's approach to this with Matt Haughey at
Metafilter. I can remember being amazed at how well mathowie moderated
metafilter with a remarkably light touch and yet still set the tne of the
site. Moot was less keeping the users in line than keeping the rest of the
world out but their ability to _not_ interfere at times when I think most of
us would want to say or do something is an incredible skill.

------
pervycreeper
>And he’s come out the other side with his soul and his spirit intact.

I have trouble believing this one. Poole has stated that the controversies
4chan was involved in in September had a big negative personal impact,
principally dealing with legal threats from celebrities who had their photos
leaked on the site. Two other events, which he conspicuously hasn't commented
on would have unquestionably left scars on his ego and soul: the 8chan
exoduses and 'cuckgate'. I would speculate that these had a far greater
negative personal impact on the poor guy than any of the others.

Some of the best original content creators and experienced posters migrated to
8ch, taking the mantle from 4chan as the authentic core of internet culture.
It's evident that at least a couple of years ago, moot took some pride in
4chan's leading place in contemporary culture, so to lose the one single point
of pride associated with the site must have been a big blow. In his farewell
livestream, he responded to repeated questions about 8chan by talking about
just about every other 'chan'-style site on the internet, making the omission
very obvious, and indicating it was something he took personally.

Second is the situation with one of his friends with whom he was very clearly
in unrequited love being revealed and mocked by his own board, giving rise to
the current ubiquity of the 'cuck' meme across the internet (and even
spreading into mainstream American politics). I know if I had been in his
place, this second event would have been quite devastating not only for
destroying my hopes and illusions of love and connection with this girl (she
even joined in the mockery in a way), but also for having it be that basis of
my ignominious fall from beloved benevolent dictator to a hated object of
mockery and derision across the entire internet.

When you take these last two events into consideration, I don't think anyone
could blame him for his decision to quit. Hope he has a much better time in
his future endeavors.

~~~
Tehnix
I think you give way too much credit to the severity of the 8ch migration. It
was not felt at all on many boards that I frequent.

As another poster mentioned in the comments, it seems more as a small very
vocal group that moved, and the traffic stats seem to agree. The comparison
was given that one hour on /vg/ was more than the traffic on the whole of 8ch.

~~~
monaway
Oops, I forgot that c i r c l e j y r k trips an HN filter.

I only post on throwaways these days because these moderation practices remind
me a little too much of 4chan.

No, seriously, you are more likely to be banned from 4chan these days than
from HN. Let that sink in.

------
codezero
I have a lot of respect for Chris for all his dedication. I remember being a
bit gobsmacked when I sent in a few bug reports for DrawQuest when it was
launched, and in the middle of the night I got an email back from Chris
thanking me for the bug reports.

I continued to send in bugs, and he continued to reply to my emails – pretty
amazing dedication. When I initially emailed in, I didn't even realize
DrawQuest was one of his creations.

------
rdl
When I read the title I thought it was about moot joining USV as an EIR or
partner.

~~~
austenallred
I had the same thought. I'm a little disappointed this isn't the case,
actually.

~~~
teacup50
Ugh. The last thing a smart, creative young person with a soul needs is to be
sucked into the VC empty-air universe.

~~~
argonaut
I'm not criticizing Chris Poole at all, but _if_ your value metric is doing
"good in this world," I'm pretty sure Union Square Ventures has brought about
more good in this world than 4chan has.

~~~
austenallred
Something tells me parent has a skewed understanding of what (good) VCs do.

------
joshu
Not surprising. Community creators end up hating their communities. This is
one of the reasons I did not put comments in Delicious.

~~~
gozo
I think "real" communities work, were people have common interests, self-
organizations, transparency etc. A lot of communities don't work because there
nothing at stake. I think you could randomly ban 25% of HN and it would,
excluding any eventual outrage, be largely the same.

~~~
joshu
I mean online communities?

------
tibbon
I'm really glad Chris has found a way out of 4Chan, so he can pursue other
awesome things. I've only hung out with him a handful of times, but always
found him to be a pretty inspiring and funny. On to new things!

------
ousta
to me it is as if the internet as an invention culminated with 4chan. it is
indeed a big moment to see the most humble genius - and probably the one big
who never made big money out of his visions - of this internet bubble handover
to someone much more like what we could expect of an owner of a crazy board.
4chan is for me a fantastic website, laboratory and show on what mankind can
bring to us. It led me to be depressive far too many times, led me to
mistrusts humans and sometimes try to trust again, led me to think that any
other media was boring, any other activity was second to it.

I don't buy the stuff people adoring steve jobs or mark zuckerberg buy. those
tech marketers who selling themselves as icons, stars and some idealistic
values of what america is. Rather than that I buy an idea of the internet that
is encompassed in the character of Chris Poole, an humble guy who created
something far much bigger than him and got shit happening to him as his baby
demon was out of control. This guy is like the inventor of tetris. a forgotten
genius that will never earn anything out of his invention but will still make
more smiles on faces than any google or facebook.

------
huskyr
> There aren’t many who understand the Internet like Chris.

> (...) I am talking about the social architecture of

> the Internet.

I think i'm not the only one interested in how Chris understands the internet.
Maybe he should write a book.

~~~
donkeyd
It would probably be the only book in existence to correctly explain what
'Anonymous' is. I'd read it.

~~~
wingerlang
Are there other books out now? Why do they fail at explaining it? I doubt that
Poole is the only one in the world that really understands what 'Anonymous'
is.

------
resonanttoe
I don't disagree with any of the assertions in the... article(?).

But whats the point of this and why does it need attention?

Communities feel ownership. Owners have conflicting responsibilities. The
bigger the community the bigger Points 1 & 2 are. All true, but relevance to
anything of anything?

Very strange posting.

~~~
fredwilson
my blog is my public diary. i write it for myself for the most part. if people
choose to read it, that's their choice.

------
tednash
Agreed, huge respect for Chris.

Having been at the helm of a (nowhere near as big) social->turned anti social
network I can relate to elements of the complexity around running 4Chan.

Excited to see what's next.

------
greggman
Chris did a great job.

Unrelated though, it will be interesting to see how the new owner handles
4chan. 2ch is almost entire run but pron ads and ads for very scammy looking
companies.

~~~
ljk
Especially for people with 4chan pass, hope what happened to 2ch users won't
happen to them - [http://www.japancrush.com/2013/stories/huge-leak-of-2ch-
user...](http://www.japancrush.com/2013/stories/huge-leak-of-2ch-users-
personal-information-shocks-netizens.html)

~~~
Koahku
Right now the pass payments are processed by Stripe so I doubt the same could
happen.

------
ryan-allen
I absolutely adored the Canvas app that he made. I don't know why it went
under, but I found it much more approachable than Reddit, as you could modify
people's creations along with making your own.

I had to block it for myself at work because I couldn't stop using it.

Ah, the stickers! I miss it!

------
pingou
Can someone explain the comments on the linked page? Is that a new sort of
robots posting nonsense and replying to one another? OR is it an 4chan
elaborate joke? That's the first time I see that.

------
mhurron
Ya, but it's all moot.

------
cromulent
A lovely article from an unexpected source.

This is another nice one about Poole:

[http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/4chans-
overlord...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/4chans-overlord-
christopher-poole-reveals-why-he-walked-away-20150313?page=2)

------
Uptrenda
I guess the ride ends after-all.

Goodbye m<3<3t.

------
LulzSect
Thank you Moot.

------
ionwake
Space cowboy

------
lawnchair_larry
Well that isn't a very useful title.

------
mashed_potato
F

------
randall
mirror?

~~~
onewaystreet
The site's not down it's just slow.

~~~
syncsynchalt
It's throwing an immediate db connection error currently.

------
angersock
Good points, but a minor pet peeve:

It's moot, not Chris. Maybe Chris Poole, but again, probably moot. Has been
moot. Always will be moot.

Are you friends with him? Do you have lunch with him? Do you work with him? In
all odds, no.

It's really quite annoying seeing people refer to people by the first names
like they actually are familiar with them. Were you a fan of Steve? Ever go on
walks with Zuck?

Seriously, it's so fucking phony--especially when the person in question
already has a name they're well-known by in their community.

~~~
fwn
I bet that's something nobody on 4chan ever wasted a single thought on.

~~~
Koahku
Actually someone did

>>Do you prefer Chris, Christopher, moot, mootykins, or some other nickname.
(In public obviously).

>Chris IRL, moot online.

[https://archive.moe/q/thread/176519/#177568](https://archive.moe/q/thread/176519/#177568)
(Warning, may be very heavy to load.)

------
vernie
I'm always expecting articles about multimedia or video compression from that
domain, and I'm always let down.

------
stevebmark
Is this article just saying "running an internet community is hard?" Pat on
the back to someone who created the one of the most actively harassing
communities online? TL;DR I knew moot?

~~~
ljk
Eh not saying 4chan is the perfect community, but many online communities are
just as, if not more, "actively harassing". There are other sections outside
of /b/

