<i>>4chan has never been a nice place. Most people don’t spend time there</i><p>Imagine a place where people don't take things that seriously and things are just weird enough that the inside jokes keeps all the outsiders out and alienated. Everyone else is sitting around the virtual campfire telling jokes and sharing stories. 4chans all reaching (and not-just-/b/-and-/pol/) bad rep comes largely in thanks to people who <i>obviously don't browse 4chan</i> or have only taken a look at /pol/ or /b/. They took a passing glance, maybe for a day or two, saw nothing but inane bullshit, and (justifiably) moved on with their lives. 4chan has a lot of shit, I don't deny that and I don't blame anyone for not having the desire to wade knee deep in it. Although wading through only the deep end of it skews perspectives heavily.<p>Notice how this article purposefully cherrypicks boards like /pol/, /h/, and /y/ instead of the less egregious boards /g/ (technology), /o/ (automobiles), /his/ (history), or /co/ (comics). One would leave with the idea that 4chan is nothing but a place for hentai and alt-right hate groups. Even among itself /b/ and /pol/ are disliked among the site. They're considered <i>containment boards</i> that prevent other boards being shit up. But one wouldn't understand the concept of a "containment board" if one doesn't browse 4chan. In fact - most articles about 4chan don't even use the term "containment board" because the authors never lurk long enough to discover the term.<p><i>>There was a time, a couple of decades ago, when trolls didn’t really exist online</i><p>Are they talking about pre-Usenet days? I don't remember a time online when trolls didn't really exist.<p><i>>And because each message board is limited to 10 pages of posts, most messages get bumped off the server within a day, if not hours. It’s pretty much unusable for the uninitiated.</i><p>This is by design. Hence "Lurk more." Imagine trying to jump into an hour old conversation having heard only the past 10 seconds of it. Nothing you have to say at that moment could have any relevance to the conversation because you still don't know what the conversation is even about. Now imagine that conversation has been going on for 15 years and you've only just showed up an hour ago. Oh - it's also in a language you can only half understand and can't speak yet. <i>Nothing</i> you could say is important, you're missing any useful information, can't identify greentext and copypasta from actual opinions and information. The concept of lurking before contributing to a discussion is seemingly lost in a post-Usennet, post-forum internet.<p><i>>And Gamergate, the smear campaign against female game developers?</i><p>Audibly laughed. They're still sticking with that? Gamergate has, and you can count yourself, has "harassed" far more males than females. Almost all journalists - and almost all peddling bullshit. Saying someone is spewing bullshit isn't harassment. Although I do love how Elon Musk became an alt-right, anti-Semitic, GamerGator because he dared speak out against the media.