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Comment by errantspark | Hacker News Reader

FWIW 4chan has accounts, banning and guidelines. It's not totally lawless and anonymous. It just has the option of anonymity.

Probably the best, deepest LGBT+ issues discussions I've ever had have been on their /lgbt/ board. They were filled with people yelling obscenities too, but that doesn't bother me. I guess it's the culture I grew up with, it's natural to engage in discussion while people are yelling around me.

I'm really glad there's still a place out there that believes in free speech as a foundational principle not to be infringed upon except as an absolute last resort. I'm glad not everywhere is 4chan, but 4chan is a gem of discourse in today's world if you ignore like 90% of it. I'm increasingly convinced that that 90% is the inevitable cost of the wonderful 10% that represents the sharing of intelligent thought without fear of reprisal.

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> I'm increasingly convinced that that 90% is the inevitable cost of the wonderful 10% that represents the sharing of intelligent thought without fear of reprisal.

high IQ post. that seems to be a pattern in many facets of life. (raising children, starting companies, dieting, traveling)

> FWIW 4chan has accounts

The Wikipedia page[1] claims that “Registration is not possible”. Is it wrong, or am I misunderstanding?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan

Using a tripcode would be the closest thing 4chan has to an "account" that I'm aware of, but it doesn't require registration, it just adds a (theoretically) unique identifier to posts.

Yeah sorry, I was thinking of tripcodes and 4chan pass as representing most of what an "account" is. It's not the same thing though.

4chan technically does have accounts in the form of '4chan pass', but it's not linked to your posts at all[1] and just removes the ads, and lets you bypass the captcha and some kinds of subnet level posting bans.

There is also the concept of a tripcode, which is basically an HMAC with a key that the server has a user provided code that is shown next to your post. You can use this to prove knowledge of the code. Usage depends a lot on which board you're on, but is generally frowned upon.

Some boards (such as the infamous /pol/) also have IDs on posts (IIRC derived from your IP address and the thread id), so that posts by the same user in the same thread can be correlated.

Other than that, everything is anonymous.

[1] minor exception is the "since4pass" option which just adds a little icon to your post indicating how long you've had your pass. This is basically never used (perhaps because even 4chan posters don't want to advertise that they're paying for 4chan)

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