Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introducing the 4chan API

4chan.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#71

Post by [deleted] »

hollerith wrote: post #57
nvmc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think the use of fag and faggot reflects homophobia, you need to take a step back and look at where you are - the internet. Do you think that people posting gore do it because they enjoy the content? It's all shock value.

(Not really interested in whether 4chan's use of "fag" reflects homophobia. I am responding to your next sentence.) >Do you think that people posting gore do it because they enjoy the content? I think there are those who post gore because they get pleasure from grossing people out, outraging people or otherwise eliciting a strong emotional reaction (which is probably what you mean by "shock value") but I do not think…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#72

Post by kentbrew »

moot wrote: post #53
dc2447 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the index URL format

Doesn't exist yet. I'll update the API GitHub page once we add it.

Couple things:

Pipes/YQL seems not to have been banned yet, so getting 4chan data back wrapped in a callback for nothing-but-front-end hacks seems doable. Also along those lines: it'd be super-awesome if the API would take ifModifiedSince as a query parameter and not just in headers.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#73

Post by lnanek2 »

volaski wrote: post #67

Forgive me if this is a noob question, but does 4chan restrict embedding of images.4chan.org images from external urls? I was just playing around with the API and it seems all the images are rendered as the placeholder image that says "4chan.org". If this is true, I don't know how to utilize this API to make something valuable since all I can do is get the url or text. Somebody please enlighten me. Thanks!

This sort of protection is usually done by checking the referrer header, which is trivial to set when retrieving something programmatically or when using standard tools like wget. The API seems focused on reducing the processing costs of browser extensions that let the user view the page, but add extra features to the page, anyway. Those would probably still seem like a normal browser view of the image to the site by default even if browser plugins can't perform the trivial client sent header change (not sure if the browser plugin API exposes it).

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#74

Post by lnanek2 »

tarice wrote: post #24

What I'm taking away from the comments below is: "Everything that could be done with this API has already been done using HTML parsing. This development will simply make those applications faster." Truth?

Yeah, and there have been Python scripts anyone interested passes around and shares too, so you haven't even had to write it yourself...

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#75

Post by afhof »

phogster wrote: post #30
afhof wrote: post #6

I 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?

4chan represents a social cauldron unlike others. The first and foremost question I had hoped to find out was "What do people talk about when they don't have an identity to think of?" There is almost zero consequence in the case of failure. If you say something and no one responds, or everyone insults you, it is completely forgotten within a few minutes. You can say almost anything you want without fear of retribution. (Where else in life does this exist?) So, with no rules, what do people want to talk about?

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#76

Post by grimboy »

moistgorilla wrote: post #56
TillE wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when, say, /tg/ stops casually tossing around f-g and f-ggot while pretending that's not at all homophobic. Garbage dump is entirely appropriate. I have no idea how anyone older than 20 can tolerate 4chan.

You do know that 4chan has a pretty large gay population right? In fact I would say roughly 70% of that site's viewers are bisexual.

While you clearly pulled that percentage out of nowhere I would agree it's probably not too far off. While it's fair to call it bisexuality, it might be more accurate to simply label it sexual opportunism.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#77

Post by davedx »

nvmc wrote: post #59
hollerith wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not really interested in whether 4chan's use of "fag" reflects homophobia. I am responding to your next sentence.) >Do you think that people posting gore do it because they enjoy the content? I think there are those who post gore because they get pleasure from grossing people out, outraging people or otherwise eliciting a strong emotional reaction (which is probably what you mean by "shock value") but I do not think…

At least when I still browsed /b/, gore was almost entirely to dissuade people from browsing. The logic being that if you couldn't get over it, you weren't all that welcome.

So explain somethingawful.com and the many other sites dedicated to the posting of gore and gruesome deaths?

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#78

Post by zhazam »

nvmc wrote: post #49
TillE wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when, say, /tg/ stops casually tossing around f-g and f-ggot while pretending that's not at all homophobic. Garbage dump is entirely appropriate. I have no idea how anyone older than 20 can tolerate 4chan.

If you really think the use of fag and faggot reflects homophobia, you need to take a step back and look at where you are - the internet. Do you think that people posting gore do it because they enjoy the content? It's all shock value.

People really like to dismiss that by calling it transgressive humor, but it's really not? You never truly get made fun of for being part of the majority.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#79

Post by agpen »

nvmc wrote: post #49
TillE wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when, say, /tg/ stops casually tossing around f-g and f-ggot while pretending that's not at all homophobic. Garbage dump is entirely appropriate. I have no idea how anyone older than 20 can tolerate 4chan.

If you really think the use of fag and faggot reflects homophobia, you need to take a step back and look at where you are - the internet. Do you think that people posting gore do it because they enjoy the content? It's all shock value.

Normalizing the "ironic" use of slurs normalizes the unironic use of them as well, and further entrenches privilege as a norm.

It doesn't take spending a lot of time in any nerd culture group to see that the racism, sexism, and homophobia are not ironic at all. Case in point, the enormous administrator/moderator-led backlash on SA in the past ~year against anyone daring to not openly welcome the death of anyone who is not a white cis male.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#80

Post by JackpotDen »

phogster wrote: post #30
afhof wrote: post #6

I 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?

What kinds of things people throw away.
Post reply on HN