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Comment by throw9348491 | Hacker News Reader

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Citations are supposed to be able to be looked up, and 4chan threads are designed to disappear. This only still exists because someone realized it was important (or, more likely, amusing that someone succeeded) and saved it elsewhere.

Lots of boards, including /sci/ (the board in question) have automatic permanent archives. The archive of this thread is linked in the mathsci.wikia.com page ( https://warosu.org/sci/thread/S3751105#p3751197 )

That's true, but over a relatively short timeframe, those archives have proven to be extremely ephemeral. I can recall multiple instances of feature rich, good quality searchable archive sites existing, improving, then one day vanishing with a huge amount of data, sometimes permanently. There's usually low redundancy and a reliance on an individual or two, who can cease keeping the data at a whim. Such archives don't monetise well, if at all. So it's a hobby project for someone. Over the last fifteen years a screenshot has proven incredibly more reliable than an archive link.

> Why it would be something extra ordinary? You give screenshot, date... Journalists do it all the time: "evil X are attacking Y while doing Z".

It's just funny. I usually associate 4chan as primarily shitposting. Memes and offensive-stuff-for-the-sake-of-being-offensive and porn. You don't generally see mathematical work being done on there.

I used 4chan for cooking and dietary stuff. It was a huge site, something like reddit.

Math stuff was very strong there, I think you just never visited this site!

I have visited the site, but mostly just hung around in /b/. I didn't really check out any of the other forums on there.

I could be wrong, but I think that the average non-active-4chan-user associates 4chan primarily with /b/.

I remember when Reddit had a reputation as a pretty gross site. It is kinda funny how their trajectories have differed.

Visited 4chan twice about 5 years apart, saw CSAM both times. I have an absolute hatred of the place rightly or wrongly.

I saw CSAM on their once like seventeen years ago, reported it, and it was removed pretty quickly. I've been fortunate enough to not see it again.

apparently only /b /pol and maybe 1 or 2 others are bananas. the rest is well moderated and civil.

/b/ is short for random so kind of seems like it's meant to siphon off / contain shitposts that would be distracting on other boards.

Its even in the rules for the other boards. Inflammatory nonsense goes in one of two or three boards, everything else has to be legal, nicer, you pick a word.

B has a tenuous grasp on reality as a whole, but individual comments and posts can be charming, informative, whatever. I used to read the nightly AI threads where people would ask "how did you..." And sometimes receive answers. I even asked a question about some new model I had not looking right and someone said "VAE" and I fixed the problem.

I don't recommend any chan unless you're the sort of person that doesn't flinch at cop videos, gore, extreme impurity, and potentially illegal topics.

There is gold there, but you really gotta dig in the excrement to find it. For most, that's probably not worth it.

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