Talk:4chan

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the 4chan article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18Auto-archiving period: 2 months

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them, a contentious topic. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator.

	4chan is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 14, 2009.
Article milestones Date Process Result November 14, 2004 Articles for deletion Kept February 16, 2006 Articles for deletion Kept August 11, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed August 19, 2008 Good article nominee Listed September 6, 2008 Peer review Reviewed September 23, 2008 Featured article candidate Promoted May 14, 2022 Featured article review Demoted Current status: Former featured article

This is not a forum for general discussion of 4chan. Any such messages will be deleted. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. All additions to the article require reliable sources for verification. Even the additions you want to make. Wikipedia does not accept original research; if you believe something to be true, you must be able to prove it.

Discussions on this page have often led to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments and look in the archives before commenting.

This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Websites: Computing Mid‑importance This article is part of WikiProject Websites, an attempt to create and link together articles about the major websites on the web. To participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Computing (assessed as Low-importance). Internet culture Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of internet culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Internet culture To-do: edit history watch purge Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : View all requested internet culture articles Expand : Pick an article from here or here Photo : Category:Internet culture articles needing images Stubs : All stubs are located here Other : Category:Internet self-classification codes (!?); Try to get YouTube to FA; Tag all articles you find with {{WikiProject Internet culture}} See also Category:Internet culture articles needing attention

The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future: Ling, Justin (May 26, 2022). "Who Owns 4chan?". Wired. Condé Nast.

Semi-protected edit request on 26 April 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Regarding the list of boards - the /mlp/ board is actually just called "Pony", not "My Little Pony", despite the use of the acronym.

Also, a recent blog post on the site announced the removal of the /f/ Flash board due to the hack. 148.252.129.8 (talk) 23:40, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

•  Done: The Flash board is still working at the time of writing, so this has been left in the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:59, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  New .swf files cannot be uploaded to the board. ArguaBILL (talk) 07:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Flash is still listed as one of the boards on the main page and the link to it works, screenshot. It may be getting removed soon, but there is an element of WP:CRYSTAL at the moment.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:00, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

4chan as a source

Hello wiki ninjas!

It looks like there are a lot of statements sourced by 4chan news or 4chan chat threads. Should these be removed or is there some sort of an "about self" rule that these fall within? It wouldn't seem like a "reliable source" to me based on the nature of the site but I might be wrong here. I wanted to put some feelers out before I started making changes. JesseL0vesT0ast (May the toast be with you.) (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The way I see it, if an event is confirmed by the 4chan admin or staff, I’d say it’s pretty reliable, regardless of the site’s nature. SmollMushroom (talk) 20:21, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really how it works here though. Primary sources are generally discouraged, especially if the information is promotional or biased. That is why I was surprised by so many in use on an established article like this. JesseL0vesT0ast (May the toast be with you.) (talk) 20:40, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they're generally discouraged. But after skimming the reference list, it seems that most of the citations are from various reliable news outlets. So, the few self-published sources would fall under WP:SELFSOURCE. SmollMushroom (talk) 21:28, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll read into it further but I don't think chat threads would qualify even by those standards. I just haven't seen anywhere else that would be remotely acceptable. JesseL0vesT0ast (May the toast be with you.) (talk) 21:34, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Request to "Internet Raids"

These two paragraphs should be merged shouldn't they? As the second one references a point made in the previous, or change to "affected by the cyber attack mentioned above" "In September 2010, in retaliation against the Bollywood film industry's hiring of Aiplex Software to launch cyberattacks against The Pirate Bay, Anonymous members, recruited through posts on 4chan boards, subsequently initiated their own attacks, dubbed Operation Payback, targeting the website of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. The targeted websites usually went offline for a short period of time due to the attacks, before recovering.

The website of the UK law firm ACS:Law, {edit point start}which was associated with an anti-piracy client, was affected by the cyber-attack.{edit point end} In retaliation for the initial attacks being called only a minor nuisance, Anonymous launched more attacks, bringing the site down yet again. After coming back up, the front page accidentally revealed a backup file of the entire website, which contained over 300 megabytes of private company emails, which were leaked to several torrents and across several sites on the Internet. It was suggested that the data leak could cost the law firm up to £500,000 in fines for breaching British Data Protection Laws. 205.209.241.6 (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update the age pls :(

Today 4chan turns 22. 43.241.194.125 (talk) 05:14, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The start date and age template will update it automatically and it is now saying 22.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:29, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

/qa/ lost

Infobox in "Notable boards" still lists /qa/, but the board was locked in November of 2021 and fully deleted in April of 2025. 176.193.189.61 (talk) 14:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a shame if /qa/, or any board for that matter, were removed from the table. They're part of 4chan's history. I suggest modifying the "Year created" column to "Years active". This way, we can show all boards with their creation and deletion years. Currently active boards would simply be listed as "Creation Year – present". SmollMushroom (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a bad idea because of various insignificant/minor boards that were deleted over the years (/asp/, /film/, etc), not to mention April Fools' boards and world4ch.

Notable boards that are actually part of "4chan's history" already have subsections, and /qa/ is rather notable, so perhaps one could write something for /qa/? Though I'm afraid that there are no WP:RS about moot's stream and/or team4chan locking /qa/ for raiding /lgbt/ 176.193.189.61 (talk) 20:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then perhaps an article split dedicated to all boards? We could transfer the "Notable boards" section from this main article to the new one. The lead would also contain a table of all the boards throughout 4chan's history, including minor and April Fools' boards. A new, dedicated article could also cover various board-specific events that don't fit into the broader context of the site. SmollMushroom (talk) 21:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Remove this source

https://gizmodo.com/internet-cesspool-4chan-is-down-after-alleged-hack-rival-forum-users-claim-credit-2000589582

dead link, clearly biased, (Redacted) 69.9.82.206 (talk) 16:44, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:YESPOV and WP:BIASED EvergreenFir (talk) 16:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Remove this source: https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-duolicious-and-how-does-it-work-all-about-the-4chan-dating-app, see WP:KYM. Replace with pending "{{source needed}}" or maybe this website (although unclear provenance). @EvergreenFir ~2025-43559-22 (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Done EvergreenFir (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]