2channel (2ちゃんねる, ni channeru^?, 2ch for short) is a Japanese Internet forum, thought to be the largest in the world.^[1][2][3] It is gaining significant influence in Japanese society, approaching that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines^[4] DQN could refer to: Dhanera railway station, India; Indian Railways station code DQN. Dokyuun; a slang term used in 2channel meaning someone who is extremely foolish. ... Download high resolution version (861x571, 92 KB)2ch home page This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... “URL” redirects here. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... Hiroyuki in Sapporo 2005 Hiroyuki Nishimura (西村 博之 Nishimura Hiroyuki; born November 16, 1976) is an administrator of 2channel, the largest and most influential BBS in Japan. ... Hiroyuki in Sapporo 2005 Hiroyuki Nishimura (西村 博之 Nishimura Hiroyuki; born November 16, 1976) is an administrator of 2channel, the largest and most influential BBS in Japan. ... A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as quotes and spoiler brackets A page from a forum showcasing emoticons and Internet slang An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. ...

Overview

2ch was opened on May 30, 1999 in a college apartment in Arkansas, USA,^[5] by Hiroyuki Nishimura, known simply as "Hiroyuki" (ひろゆき). Today, most moderation on the forum is done by a voluntary group, self-elected and picked from 2ch users. 2ch itself is non-commercial and run by banner advertisement fees and support from a hosting service company that provides specially priced inexpensive UNIX hosting. is the 150th day of the year (151st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Official language(s) English Capital Little Rock Largest city Little Rock Largest metro area Little Rock Metropolitan Area Area  Ranked 29th  - Total 53,179 sq mi (137,002 km²)  - Width 239 miles (385 km)  - Length 261 miles (420 km)  - % water 2. ... Hiroyuki in Sapporo 2005 Hiroyuki Nishimura (西村 博之 Nishimura Hiroyuki; born November 16, 1976) is an administrator of 2channel, the largest and most influential BBS in Japan. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...

What is unique about this website is its scale and management style. It has more than 600 active boards (Japanese ita) such as "Social News", "Computers", and "Cooking", making it the most comprehensive forum in Japan. Each board usually has thousands of specific threads, such as "Coming election in Tokyo: 4th vote", "P4 vs. Athlon: overheating 51 times", and "Best wheat for making Pizza: 3rd slice".

2ch operates on innovative forum software which is a major departure from 1980s bulletin board systems or 1990s forum software such as vBulletin. Most importantly, nearly everything is done anonymously and voluntarily. A posting in a thread will either "age" (bump, from Japanese "ageru", to raise) or "sage" (not bump, from Japanese "sageru", to lower) its position in the thread list; "sage-ed" posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be "sage-ed" if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling the thread at the top of the list. “BBS” redirects here. ... vBulletin (abbreviated as vB) is a commercial Internet forum package produced by Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. ... Look up BUMP and bump in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who intentionally posts controversial or contrary messages in an online community such as an online discussion forum or USENET, with the intention of baiting users into an argumentative response. ...

Each thread is limited to 1000 postings at maximum, and a new thread must be opened (by some anonymous user, self-elected during discussion) to continue discussion. This prevents the rotting of old threads and keeps active topics refreshed. It also saves bandwidth, which is a major concern on a forum as large as 2ch. Old threads are moved to a paid archive, then eventually deleted.

With the huge popularity of this forum, the style of web forums with anonymity, index, and sage features is now known as "2ch-style"^{[citation needed]}.

Culture

Shift JIS art is popular on 2ch. This shows a Japanese-style funeral.

Due to its accessibility, chaotic nature and large size, it is difficult to describe or define this emerging community. However, because 2ch serves a similar purpose to Usenet, the culture and customs of 2ch contributors parallels Usenet culture. Several important or well-known organisations are known to have posted or lurked within this forum, even though the forum is considered by many to be "underground", despite its wide acceptance^{[citation needed]}. This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... 2channel Shift_JIS art (AA). An example of American Shift_JIS art. ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Lurk (internet forums). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Frequent visitors of 2ch usually call themselves "2ちゃんねらー" (meaning "2ch'er" or "2channeler", pronounced "ni-chan-ne-raah", romaji is "ni channerā"). Even though topics vary a lot between each thread or board, 2ch as a whole keeps its unity through its unique cultural backplane. "2ch slang", "2ch AA" (Shift JIS encoded ASCII art) and "2ch Flash" are examples of such culture. Many virtual characters, such as Monā, and Onigiri have evolved out from these creations, and are now acknowledged as mascots representing the whole community^{[citation needed]}. The now famous Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman parody character was created by members of the 2ch forums, as well as its flash movies. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 The title given to this article lacks diacritics because of certain technical limitations. ... 2channel Shift_JIS art (AA). An example of American Shift_JIS art. ... ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ... Monā saying Omae mo nā Monā (モナー) is the most well-known Shift JIS art character in Japan. ... Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman in his famous pose The Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman (醤油戦士キッコーマン Shō-yu Senshi Kikkōman) — or just Kikkoman (キッコーマン Kikkōman) as most people know him — is a superhero featured in a famous parody flash movie based on the Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce brand. ... // == Macromedia Flash == ==]] Using Macromedia Flash 8 (bundled in Studio 8) in Windows XP. Maintainer: Adobe Systems (formerly Macromedia) Latest release: 8 / September 30th, 2005 OS: Windows (no native Windows XP Professional x64 Edition support), Mac OS X, Linux (i386 only, via wine [1]) Use: Multimedia Content Creator License: Proprietary Website...

2ch members participate in various distributed computing projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project and SETI@home. 2ch is the current leader of the UD project, with the highest results and point total, as well as having the largest number of participants. Distributed computing is a method of computer processing in which different parts of a program run simultaneously on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network. ... UD Agent The United Devices Cancer Research Project, is one of several distributed computing projects that have been operated on the website by United Devices. ... SETI@home logo SETI@home (SETI at home) is a distributed computing project using Internet-connected computers, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. ...

Anonymous posting

One of the most distinguishing features of 2ch is the complete freedom of anonymous posting. This is a large departure from most English language internet forums which require some form of registration, usually coupled with email verification for further identification of an individual. On 2ch, a name field is available but seldom used. Entering your name in the field, unless you do so with an obvious lack of purpose, would identify you as a newbie who doesn't understand the forum, an administrator, or someone attempting to be a Web celebrity^{[citation needed]}. A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as quotes and spoiler brackets A page from a forum showcasing emoticons and Internet slang An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. ...

The reason for allowing anonymous posting was given in an interview with the founder of 2ch in the Japan Media Review: Japan Media Review is an English academic online journal dedicated to the Japanese press. ...

Q: Why did you decide to use perfect anonymity, not even requiring a user name?

A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other.

If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.

Free speech

Because 2channel is anonymous, the place is filled with every kind of hate speech imaginable.^{[original research?]} Apart from obvious and predictable examples of this, such as the Middle East board having at least one thread containing anti-Semitic or Islamophobic speech, and the Board of East Asia repulsed to anti-Japanese sentiment of China and Korea. On the other hand, they are friendly to Taiwan. ^{[citation needed]}, there are some forms of hate speech which are peculiar to 2ch, for example: Hate speech is a controversial term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, moral or political views, socioeconomic class, occupation or appearance... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... It has been suggested that Persecution of Muslims be merged into this article or section. ... East Asia Geographic East Asia. ... Anti-Japanese sentiment refers to the view of the Japanese people or of the Japanese nation with suspicion or hostility. ... This article is about the Korean peninsula and civilization. ...

• The football board having many anti-football threads started by baseball fans ^{[citation needed]}
• The motorbike board having threads derogatory to Harley Davidson owners or biker groups. ^{[citation needed]}

The typical response to most of these insulting "troll" posts would be "You Too!" (オマエモナー, Omae mo nā in Japanese), and this eventually led to the creation of 2channel's mascot Monā, as a pun on this oft-said phrase^{[citation needed]}. However, troll posts such as these are tolerated on 2ch, and are even treated like any other post; this is in contrast to most forums, where troll posts would not be responded to at all ("don't feed the trolls!"), and would be deleted on sight by a moderator. The only type of posts which are not allowed are vandalism posts (for example, spamming and flooding) and posts which could be classed as slander under Japanese law, and could result in legal action being undertaken against 2channel. Also, posts which declare intentions to commit a crime would be referred to the police, due to events such as the Neomugicha incident.^{[citation needed]} Look up Football in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Football in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Motorcycle (disambiguation). ... Harley-Davidson Motor Company (NYSE: HOG) is an American manufacturer of motorcycles based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. ... A Do not feed the troll image In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including... Monā saying Omae mo nā Monā (モナー) is the most well-known Shift JIS art character in Japan. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Vandalism is the conspicuous defacement or destruction of a structure, a symbol or anything else that goes against the will of the owner/governing body. ... A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. ... A flood is a Usenet term referring to a massive amount of posts in a single newsgroup in a short period of time. ... In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ... Japanese law was historically heavily influenced by Chinese law and developed independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki, but has been largely based on the civil law of Germany since the late 19th century. ... The Neomugicha incident put the Japanese bulletin board 2channel (2ch for short) in the front of national news. ...

Incidents such as this have happened in the past, an example of this being a women's mahjong league and the activist Arudou Debito.^[6] In fact, 2channel due to its massive size and anonymous posting is littered with slander and defamation against public figures and institutions. Though the site has a rule to delete such illegal posting, the scale of the site makes a prompt response difficult. There are numerous civil actions against Hiroyuki by individuals and corporations for slander and defamation. Hiroyuki so far ignored every court order and has never shown up for any trial and he has lost every civil case brought against him by default. Hiroyuki does not hold any sizable asset in Japan and any financial gain by Hiroyuki (bar what the court rule as necessary living expense) is subject to foreclosure. 2channel's assets are all held overseas; the servers are located in California and the domains are owned by a United States registrar. Moreover, technically, Hioroyuki does not own 2channel. None of the winner of civil action collected any money from Hiroyuki. This article is about the four-player game of Chinese origin. ... Arudou Debito Arudou Debito (有道 出人 Arudō Debito), a naturalized Japanese citizen born in the United States, is a teacher, author and controversial activist. ...

In January 2007, a small court in Japan, making a judgement on yet another slander case, announced that 2channel's holding company was bankrupt and it would be repossessed. This claim was openly mocked by Hiroyuki on 2channel's splash page, and nothing of the sort happened, although 2channel's Japanese ISP ended its operations.^[7]

However, even though incidents such as those described above have resulted in legal action against 2channel, these same incidents have also resulted in 2channel gaining a huge amount of publicity though mass-media coverage of these incidents.^{[citation needed]}

Terminology

These terms are used both on 2channel and on its Japanese and American spinoffs.^[8]

• AA – Abbreviation of "ASCII art", usually referring to common Shift JIS art characters.
• A-bone (Jp. あぼーん (abōn) ) – "To delete a post". Posts are deleted in two ways: Normal A-bone and invisible A-bone (Japanese 透明あぼーん). Any posts deleted as normal A-bone are replaced by a special post, whose subject, date, and body are all "あぼーん".
• Age (pronounced "ah-geh") – From Japanese ageru (上げる "to raise"), refers to replying to an especially noteworthy or neglected post in order to move it to the top of the topic list (equivalent to the English bump)
• Capcode – A special, custom tripcode used by website administrators and especially famous people chosen by the webmasters; in Japanese, simply "cap"(キャップ).
• Fixed Handle – An online nickname (as opposed to anonymity); in Japanese, Kotehan(コテハン), from Kotei Handle Name(固定ハンドル)
• Monā – An ASCII art character (whom the Mona Font is named after)
• Giko Cat (Giko neko) – Another ASCII art character — the unofficial mascot of 2ch.
• Off Kai – An offline meeting by anonymous posters
• Sage (pronounced [sɑge]) – replying to a post using the word "sage" in the email field, which keeps it from bumping.
• Tripcode – A cryptographic hash created from a password, used to allow a user to "sign" their posts while remaining anonymous; in Japanese, simply "trip" (トリップ,トリ for short)
• ">>" – Often followed with the numeral of the intended post to mean reply or follow up. 2ch automatically makes a link.
  • >>1-san (>>1さん) – An ASCII art character, representing the poster who started the thread it appears in.

ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ... 2channel Shift_JIS art (AA). An example of American Shift_JIS art. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Monā saying Omae mo nā Monā (モナー) is the most well-known Shift JIS art character in Japan. ... Mona Font is a Japanese proportional font for X Window System. ... Giko Cat or Giko neko (ギコ猫) is a character-based Japanese fictional cat. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Tripcodes are a method of authentication that does not require registration. ... In cryptography, a cryptographic hash function is a hash function with certain additional security properties to make it suitable for use as a primitive in various information security applications, such as authentication and message integrity. ... >>1-san (>>1さん) is a common Shift_JIS art character on the popular Japanese BBS 2ch, usually standing in for the user who started a given thread. ...

Common abbreviations and phrases

• Burakura (ブラクラ) – "Browser crusher", one who posts links to sites designed to crash users' web browsers.
• Chu or Chubou (厨房, lit:kitchen) – An intentional misuse of kanji for "中坊" (a middle school kid), it refers to those posters who post without reading any rules, also to those who engage in flaming and spamming. Its meaning is similar to the term internet troll.
• Natsuchu (夏厨) – Someone who appears in the summer break and makes ridiculous posts, acting like Chu
• DQN, or dokyun – Someone who is extremely foolish. From an imitation of cell phone abbreviations.
• Fuun (（ ´_ゝ`）ﾌｰﾝ ) – a kaomoji for indifference; the word 「フーン」 is the Japanese equivalent of the English "meh." The fuun face is the basis of the Sasuga Brothers AA.
• Fuyuchu (冬厨) – Same as natsuchu, but for posters appearing in winter.
• Haahaa ((*´Д`)ﾊｧﾊｧ) – a kaomoji indicating that one is breathing heavily. Generally due to being excited, in most cases connected to lust or sexuality, However, "Haahaa" does not imply masturbation or negative connotation by default. It may also indicate nervousness (for an example of the latter usage, see Densha Otoko).
• Kami (神 or ネ申) – A person who is considered a "forum god" for especially useful posts or an interesting ID hash; see Kami
• Kita!! (ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!) – Literally, "I have/It has come!", it is generally used as a big exclamation mark (equivalent to the Japanese term yatta). The face in the center is named jisakujien.
• Kopipe (コピペ) – Copy/paste (copypasta in 4chan). A text passage or piece of AA that is frequently recycled and reposted.
• Nurupo (ぬるぽ) – A parody of the Java output "NullPointerException"(NullPointerException). Usually followed up with "GA(ガッ)!", the sound of a hammer hitting the "nurupo" poster, because of a meme started in this thread.
• Tsuri (釣り) – Trolling; a literal translation of "trolling" as a method of fishing.
• Uho! (ウホッ!) – Originally from a gay manga, used somewhat like Haahaa and Kita!! but when the post is macho
• ｗ – A single letter substituting for "warai" or "laughing", added to mean that the poster is joking or thinks he made a funny remark, basically the equivalent to "LOL"; putting "ｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ" at the end of something is the same thing as saying "LOLOLOLOLOLOL". Also warota (ワロタ) from the Kansai-ben past tense of warau. Warosu (ワロス) is one of the recent derivatives of warota, from the threads (ワロス のガイドライン, Guidelines for warosu), where endless word-chanting of warosues is going on. Nowadays 'terawarosu' (ﾃﾗﾜﾛｽ) can be seen too. It means something like ROTFL.
• orz (orz, OTZ, ○|￣|＿, OTL) – the image of someone bowing down in despair and hitting their head on the floor. The "o" is the head, the "r" is the hands and the body, the "z" the legs.
• ki gasu (希ガス) – short for "ki ga suru" (I have a feeling that…(…のような気がする)). Given the intentionally misspelt kanji and katakana used here, this also means "noble gas."
• moesu (ﾓｴｽ) – really really lovable. Moe is a term in Japanese that means something like "endearing"(萌える(可愛い)). On the flip side, kimosu (ｷﾓｽ) means "really creepy."(きもい。気持ち悪い) Anything with a ｽ at the end means OOOsugi (way too OOO).
• more (漏れ) – an intentional misspelling of the very masculine first person pronoun ore(俺).
• Nenchaku otsu (粘着乙(粘着、お疲れ様です)) – Someone who revives old threads or topics, or sticks to one topic too long, and it bothers the poster. Is meant to be rude. See "otsu" below.
• kwsk (kwsk) – an abbreviation for "kuwashiku,"(詳しく) or "Detail it.". Specifically, a request for more details, or a source of the referenced information or manga. (similar to 4chan's "sauce")
• otsu (乙) – an abbreviation for "otsukaresama"(お疲れ様), which is literally consisted of the honorific "o" + "tsukare" (meaning "fatigue") + "sama" (a polite title given to every adult, especially in correspondence). But in this particular instance, it roughly means "well done" or "thanks for your trouble" in an utterly ironic or sarcastic tone. For instance >>1乙. "Otsukaresama(desu)" is also a highly popular parting salute among office workers (both male and female), who use it instead of "sayonara."
• wktk (wktk) - an abbreviation for "wakuteka" (ワクテカ), itself an abbreviation for "waku waku teka teka" (わくわくてかてか), which is (often ironically) used to express the fact that one "just can't wait" for something to happen.
• (ry ((ry) - an abbreviation for "ika ryaku" (以下略), meaning that the end of a commonplace statement has been voluntarily omitted. Somewhat equivalent to "(you/we all know what I mean)", "[...]", "yadda yadda" or "blah blah blah".

Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Look up flaming in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. ... A Do not feed the troll image In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including... Kaomoji (顔文字; literally, face mark) is the Japanese version of a emoticon, written vertically. ... Kaomoji (顔文字; literally, face mark) is the Japanese version of a emoticon, written vertically. ... Densha Otoko translated as Train Man) is a Japanese movie, television series, manga, novel, and other media, all based on the purportedly true story of a twenty-three year old otaku, who intervened when a drunk man was harassing several women on a train, and who himself ultimately begins dating... “Megami” redirects here. ... Windows keys for cut and pasting: Control + x (cut), Control + c (copy), Control + v (paste) In human-computer interaction, cut and paste or copy and paste is a user interface paradigm for transferring text, data, files or objects from a source to a destination. ... This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. ... “Java language” redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Software pointer be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Meme (disambiguation). ... A Do not feed the troll image In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ... This article is about the comics published in East Asian countries. ... Look up Macho in Wiktionary, the free dictionary This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Internet slang. ... The Japanese language, in addition to to Standard Japanese, based on Tokyo speech, has dozens of geographic dialects. ... tera- (symbol: T) is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 1012, or 1 000 000 000 000. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Katakana ) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. ... Neon, like all noble gases, has a full valence (outermost) electron shell. ... This article is about the comics published in East Asian countries. ...

English offspring

There have been some attempts by various internet communities to form their own, more English or internationally-oriented message boards in the style and tradition of 2ch. The first and most notable was the now defunct world2ch, administered by Taichirou Kosugi ("RIR7") and abandoned in late 2003. Two boards have been put up to replace world2ch, but neither has become anywhere near as popular. ^{[citation needed]}

• 4-ch, is a primarily English anonymous forum powered by Kareha, message board software that follows the style of 2ch.
• 4chan BBS, once a separate site but now merged with 4chan. The forum layout is slightly different from 2ch, but the anonymous element remains the same.

Many imageboards also provide limited amounts of anonymous discussion boards. This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. ... 3 major imageboards: Futaba Channel, 4chan, and iichan, along with the Overchan index. ...

Referral system

2channel uses a referral system for any links to external websites posted on the forum. People clicking on a link are first send to a page filled with advertisements on the ime.nu domain where a link to the actual site is placed. Apart from collecting revenue from the 2channel visitors it also attracts website owners of the linked pages who check their statistics and can't link it back to 2channel^[9]. In interviews the founder of 2channel has remarked that the system helps decreasing claims on the site as people cannot directly track the ime.nu site back to 2channel ^{[citation needed]}.

2ch phenomena

Densha Otoko

Main article: Densha Otoko

Between March and May of 2004, an anonymous user posted in a sub-forum for single men to decry their woes. His post detailed an event that had happened that day as he was riding the train. According to his account, he was sitting on the train when he noticed an attractive woman. Suddenly, a drunken man entered the car and bothered many passengers, who did not offer any resistance to his disturbance. This man then began to sexually harass the woman, and seeing no-one else coming to her aid, the poster told the man to stop bothering the woman. The two struggled for a short time while the other passengers used this distraction to call the conductor, who took control of the situation.[1] Densha Otoko translated as Train Man) is a Japanese movie, television series, manga, novel, and other media, all based on the purportedly true story of a twenty-three year old otaku, who intervened when a drunk man was harassing several women on a train, and who himself ultimately begins dating... Sexual harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. ...

This poster was an extremely introverted, socially inept otaku. Never having done such a thing before in his life, he was amazed to find that the woman was thanking him deeply for saving her from harassment. They exchanged addresses and parted ways. The poster, upon returning home, began talking with other posters in the thread and was nicknamed "Densha Otoko" ("Train Man") for his bravery. Otaku ) is a derisive Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests in manga, anime or hentai. ...

A bit later, Densha received a package from the woman he had saved. This package, originally thought to be a generic thank-you gift, turned out to be an expensive tea set. Flabbergasted, he turned to the 2channelers for advice: he was convinced that such a gift was too expensive to be a mere thank-you gift. Densha then contacted the woman and began meeting her regularly, all the while posting updates on 2ch and discussing the matter with other posters. Following their collective advice, he got a haircut, purchased new clothes, and began to come out of his shell. After seeing her for a while, his personality had changed for the better and this culminated a few months later in Densha confessing his love for the woman. She accepted and when the 2channelers were informed of this there was a mass celebration; posts began flowing in congratulating the new couple.[2]

Because 2ch has an enormous impact on net culture in Japan, this story quickly spread throughout the media and became an instant hit. Its almost fairytale-like simplicity and emotional power drew people to the story, and a copy of the original threads relating to the story was published in a book. Since then, there have been four manga adaptations of the story; a feature film which reached #1 in the box office upon its release; and a hugely popular TV live-action drama aired during 2005. According to Densha Otoko and Hermes (the nickname of the woman; named after the brand of the tea-set she sent him), they are still together.^{[citation needed]} This article is about the comics published in East Asian countries. ...

Masashi Tashiro

In 2001, 2ch users voted en-masse for Japanese TV performer Masashi Tashiro as Time Magazine's Person of the Year. This act was soon dubbed the "Tashiro Festival" (Tashiro Matsuri, 田代祭) by 2ch users. Tashiro was infamous in the Japanese media for committing several crimes, including peeping up a woman's skirt using a camcorder, using stimulants twice, peeping in a male bath and causing a car accident. 2ch programmers developed many scripts such as "Tashiro Cannon" (Tashiro-hō, 田代砲), "Mega particle Tashiro Cannon" (Mega-ryūshi Tashiro-hō, メガ粒子田代砲), "25 repeated blows Tashiro Cannon" (Nijyū-go renda Tashiro-hō, 25連打田代砲) "Super Tashiro Cannon" (Chō Tashiro-hō, 超田代砲) to be able to vote repeatedly. "Super Tashiro cannon" was so powerful that it crashed Time's server. Due to the votes of 2ch users, he got to the No. 1 position temporarily on December 21, 2001. However, Time's staff realized that something was unusual, and Tashiro was removed as a candidate.^[5] Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... “TV” redirects here. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Time (whose trademark is capitalized TIME) is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. ... Past Person of the Year covers (clockwise from upper-left): Charles Lindbergh, 1927; The American Fighting-Man, 1950; Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979; The Computer, 1982; Rudy Giuliani, 2001. ... Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres depicts the Comtesse dHaussonville, wearing a dress. ... Sony DV Handycam A camcorder is a portable electronic device for recording video images and audio onto an internal storage device. ... Stimulants are drugs that temporarily increase alertness and wakefulness. ... The shield and spear of the Roman god Mars, which is also the alchemical symbol for iron, represents the male sex. ... A bathtub A bathtub (AmE) or bath (BrE) is a plumbing fixture used for bathing. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ...

IRC@2ch

There's also an IRC network called 'IRC@2ch', whose main IRC and web server are both hosted on irc.2ch.net. The network is rather small with two servers, no services, and fewer than 2000 users.^[10] The chat in most channels is in Japanese, using the ISO-2022-JP encoding. The network maintains a list over what channels are currently the most active on its web page. “IRC” redirects here. ... IRC services is a common name for a set of features implemented in most modern Internet Relay Chat networks. ... ISO 2022, more formally ISO/IEC 2022, is an ISO standard (equivalent to the ECMA standard ECMA-35) specifying a technique for including multiple character sets in a single character encoding. ...

Notes and References

Japan Media Review is an English academic online journal dedicated to the Japanese press. ... The Mainichi Shimbun (毎日新聞, lit. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... is the 94th day of the year (95th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• 2ch.net – The 2ch site (Japanese)
• 2-Ten ("ni-ten") – 2ch reference (also available as a book from Amazon.jp)
• English list and navigation of 2ch boards at 4-ch.net
• The Dynamism of 2channel – a sociological study by Naohiro Matsumura et al. presented at the "Social Intelligence Design International Conference 2003"
• 2NN – 2ch News Navigator
• IRC@2ch
• A good discussion of 2ch-type boards v. "Western" forum softwares
• Taiwanese derivative of 2ch-type boards
• 2channel post 1.2.3. 4. 5. – Watashi to Tokyo(Blog)