The first thing that jumps to mind with this is... "Oh $#!*." I don't know why, but it scares me what could come out of this.
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Introducing the 4chan API
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's great news. No hope for a posting API I presume?
Probably not. Since we don't have user accounts, and already have a bit of a spam problem, I'd be pretty worried about what a real POST API might bring.
What if you charged for it? (Not saying this is a good idea, just that it's an idea.)
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Selective archives (users vote to archive a thread) have been around since at least 2007: http://4chanarchive.org/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html Full board archives have been around for quite some time as well: http://easymodo.net/ (the original complete archiver, now dead) http://archive.foolz.us/ https://archive.installgentoo.net/ etc. I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forg…
> I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forgotten, even if it is archived, is much more of a negative aspect of the site than a positive. This is the most magical aspect of 4chan, which is why I don't care for archives.
You've mentioned before that you visit 4chan every day. Do you visit any text boards?
I guess it's my own fault for fighting against the nature of the site, but sometimes I try to go the extra mile and put some effort into a post, and feel like no one even notices when I do. It's very discouraging for a conversation to have long since moved on by the time you've posted, or for a person you were trying to help to have given up already and left their thread. While I like 4chan for what it is, I'm still a little bit sad that the textboards never really took off as much, and I wonder why they didn't -- anonymous somewhat-long-form discussion sounds appealing to me. I'd be right at home in a text board with a fraction of the userbase of a 4chan board and a slightly slower pace, but most of the ones I know of are practically dead at this point.
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Selective archives (users vote to archive a thread) have been around since at least 2007: http://4chanarchive.org/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html Full board archives have been around for quite some time as well: http://easymodo.net/ (the original complete archiver, now dead) http://archive.foolz.us/ https://archive.installgentoo.net/ etc. I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forg…
> I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forgotten, even if it is archived, is much more of a negative aspect of the site than a positive. This is the most magical aspect of 4chan, which is why I don't care for archives.
> This is the most magical aspect of 4chan, which is why I don't care for archives.
The written word allows us to lend ideas (memes, concepts, what have you) a sense of permanence that they never would have had otherwise. But at the same time, it prevents them from evolving in a way they otherwise might have, if their exact origins were not so easily recorded & referenced.
I don't think it's a coincidence that 4chan, which lacks this permanence, is the origin of so many of the top memes of the past decade (and by 'meme', I don't just mean things like LOLcats).
(Gleick argues this same point in the first few chapters of The Information, for those who are interested).
EDIT: Just realized who I was replying to - if I may ask, are you concerned at all that an official API might detract from 4chan (by making said content more traceable)?
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#35Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Selective archives (users vote to archive a thread) have been around since at least 2007: http://4chanarchive.org/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html Full board archives have been around for quite some time as well: http://easymodo.net/ (the original complete archiver, now dead) http://archive.foolz.us/ https://archive.installgentoo.net/ etc. I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forg…
> I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forgotten, even if it is archived, is much more of a negative aspect of the site than a positive. This is the most magical aspect of 4chan, which is why I don't care for archives.
I totally agree. /k/ommando here Thanks for keeping it relatively the same. I've thought about creating a bookmarklet or something to add some features I originally thought would be nice (threading/grouping linked comments, or alerting you when you get a reply) but I realized that features like these could fragment each thread and distort the flow of the conversation.
Two features I still think wouldn't conflict with the site are buttons to expand images inline in a thread and turning the text links clickable (copying and pasting on a tablet sucks). I know there are bookmarklets which do this but I can't display my bookmarks bar on chrome on my tablet.
I understand that 4chan isn't very/at all profitable. I think there really is opportunity for you branch out on some boards rather than just links to that jlist site. Have you considered doing more contextually aware ads or even relevant amazon affiliate links in threads to boost your revenues? There will always be detractors but I think most users really appreciate 4chan and would love to see you better compensated for it as long as it doesn't ruin the site in the process.
one more thing, This API will no doubt be used by people to create their own sites which add the features they want to 4chan, do you consider the API a potential source of revenue by perhaps charging for faster versions of it?
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#37Regarding financial sustability, have you thought about charging for the new API?
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd say the fact that your posts are most likely to be forgotten, even if it is archived, is much more of a negative aspect of the site than a positive. This is the most magical aspect of 4chan, which is why I don't care for archives.
You've mentioned before that you visit 4chan every day. Do you visit any text boards? I guess it's my own fault for fighting against the nature of the site, but sometimes I try to go the extra mile and put some effort into a post, and feel like no one even notices when I do. It's very discouraging for a conversation to have long since moved on by the time you've posted, or for a person you were trying to help to have…
That really sounds like a job for a niche subreddit with a throwaway account, not a 4chan BBS.
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#39Regarding financial sustability, have you thought about charging for the new API?
I'm sure this is about trying to improve site performance, and charging for it would inevitably cause everyone to continue scraping the HTML, thus defeating the point.
Re: Introducing the 4chan API
#40I feel kinda silly just having spent the long weekend writing a threaded 4chan scraper. This is a super welcome change though. Even if you don't visit 4chan regularly you can't ignore the VAST amount of content people upload there. I imagine some interesting statistics will come of this ( I know I plan to).
I don't know. Getting an API to 4chan is like getting a parking pass to the local garbage dump. What statistics are you actually mining here?
There is plenty of excellent content (consequently, statistics), you just have to look a little harder. I would hazard a guess that you've taken a quick glance and dismissed the entire community. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.