/qa/ - Questions & Answers

Are general's soft allowed again?

The moderators will deal with it soon

>>117965
Soft? There's like fifty of them, no joke, and many openly refer to themselves as /***/.
>>117966
It looks like they've been around for at least two years, though. Take this ritualpost:
>Searching for posts that contain ‘"where's my nigga mo"’ and in ascending order. 285 results found.
You can use this to track their journey starting in March 2022: from Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, to Hitoribocchi, Mission-chan no Daibouken, End of Goldfish Kingdom, Game Club, Beank & Rosa, Hedoro-san, and after quite a while there's Blame and now ShimSim. Another interesting clue in its development is the word "anonsito," which was first used in 2020, and specifically "thanks, anonsito" from mid-late 2021 onwards. It started out in Yotsuba threads, and can now be found in several of the ongoing storytimes.

Seems to me there's a fundamental tension between people who want there to be a big topic to form board culture around, and people who want space to discuss less popular things.

Bout damn time there's manga discussion about something other than shonen and the fotm

>>117969
It doesn't strike me as a super closely-knit thing, but there's clearly a clash going on because of it. One person complained that tkmizfags "see these threads as just another discussion thread" and, true enough, in that same thread a different Anonymous later wrote "Merry Christmas /tkmiz/." Happened again in the next thread too, even when there's a separate SSR thread up at the same time.
>>117970
Yeah, I know, and I can't see any possible alternative to it. But then you have a thread like 260591828 which lasted for nearly ten days in a board that gets 20+ threads per hour, and didn't even reach bump limit. It's weird how the kneejerk reaction is to say anyone pointing it out just wants to have more shonen around.

Just make /ma/ and /ai/ already. It is time.

>>117965
They've been soft allowed since like 2017 when the last moot-era mods were deposed and blatantly promoted since 2020. You can have "edition" and a "last thread >>" in the OP and hit bump limit. They also do nothing to prevent samefag page 10 saves perpetually occurring, which is why ~20% of the board is over a day old at any time, with several always being 1-2 weeks old. I imagine it's easier to moderate this way since you don't need to know about board culture or even watch anime to know what's on-topic when everything is a series general with a clear label. But it tanked the board quality so hard that I pretty much stopped using it.

>>117971
People have always used shounen as an excuse for why their own cancer should be allowed, but all they're doing is copying the shounenfags they so hate with even more insular generals that kill all the fun and creative threads while said shounen generals are oblivious to it all.

It won't be long until the tkmizfags start a JOI CEI general

Later /a/ generals were offputting. I remember /pc/ being mostly ironic shitposting with an undercurrent of depression blogging and anger at hetero shipping. Man, they must be unhappy with Tsubasa.

Is there still a fascination with Go Nagai manga

>>117973
Searching for "daily" in the subject field does show it started with Yotsuba& in May 2018, but at first it wasn't getting perma-bumped. It was at the end of that manga that they ran a poll and decided to go with Azumanga next:
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/176580710/#176625815
Yeap, looks like this was it, the genesis of it all.
>>117974
>even more insular generals that kill all the fun and creative while said shounen generals are oblivious to it all.
That's the funniest part of how often /dbs/ specifically gets brought up, it's treated as the epitome of generals at the same time that it's one of the most influential and least insular out there. Weird how that turned out.

>>117976
>I remember /pc/ being mostly ironic shitposting with an undercurrent of depression blogging and anger at hetero shipping.
Faggots. Yes 5 was vastly elevated by the relationships between first, Nozomi and Coco and second, Komachi anfd Nuts.
So too is Pretty Rhythm elevated by its crushes and kissus and anguish.

>>117987
Pretty Rhythm seems to have dadcon going on too

>>117988
I know, I was the one who showed you.

>>117990
/pc/ was very hostile to dicksword last time I was there

>>117989
What you didn't clip was how unsuitable everyone aside from the blonde one are to actually be a pop star long-term

>>117993
Make a thread about it. I haven't finished watching it yet

>>117990
Have you checked what the Japanese otaku fanbase thinks of it? The only thing I've seen was a 2ch poster pleased the mascot was central to the plot. (And also that they made it clear early ero art of her is considered taboo even by their standards)

I saw it, deletard.

>>118000
>but on the other it's further fragmentation of a space whose current speed is hovering around the lowest levels it has had in the last ten years.
Really? The frustrating thing is that /a/ users just seem to disappear, aside from those liveboards there's no real alternative where they all congregate

>>117990
>more personal, slower and less flamewar-y
/vg/ and /vt/ are the fastest boards on 4chan. Generals make things faster because there's a need to maintain constant activity so any time there's a lull someone will post template prompts or bait to spark the same handful of responses. The opinions and "sides" become more entrenched and hostile since they're stuck sharing the same space all day and that makes them prime real-estate for trolls, which is why every one ends up with at least one massive shitposter who constantly drives people up the wall.

/a/ at least hasn't taken to blatantly posting their series discord yet, but that is the norm on other general-centric boards. The 4chan element of the community becomes sort of an entrance portal for new members.

>>118000
>they don't have any other way to consistently go about it
Before the daily chapter thing took off the norm was to dump an entire volume a day/week, then just let it end. It wasn't about trying to foster and maintain a sub-community, it was a way to give exposure to the series an opportunity for anyone interested in the series to discuss it before being on their way.

>>118002
>/a/ users just seem to disappear
It isn't just /a/. The last major exodus from 4chan into 8ch drove out the long time users and content creators. Which splintered into multiple smaller boards at 8ch over the years due to differences in opinion on how the boards should be run. Then when 8ch died nothing was allowed to replace it (all possible websites were attacked and ran offline). So now the users of all the old boards are spread to the four corners of the internet. Everyone is contained in small little communities where it's impossible to organize and where they can be monitored and contained. Most of which require a SIM card to access them.

The name of the Discord application wasn't a mistake. It's exactly what it was designed to do. All alternatives to it are the same thing with a different coat of paint. All require cell phone to access or will soft-ban you and ask for it the moment you post anything some mod doesn't like. The WWW is a minefield of small websites that can't get beyond 10-20 active users. Any more than that and the bots roll in to shut it down.

>>118015
>it was a way to give exposure to the series an opportunity for anyone interested in the series to discuss it before being on their way.
Yeah, that's exactly where the ~paradigm shift~ took place.
When going through the archives I saw several threads that were just OP dumping anywhere from fifty to a hundred pages while getting zero to five comments at the end. The current model's advantage is sidestepping that, both by having an already invested group of people and by keeping the daily material small enough that it's easy to engage with. Factually speaking it's more reliable, and the people I've seen arguing in favor of them typically highlight those two main points.
It's not that rare of a strategy to take. One forum I used to browse has a sub-section dedicated to JP book clubs of different difficulty levels whose threads work identically, and (if I recall correctly) the /qa/ stream itself also used voting even before it was seasonal. The key differences are that these didn't create new sub-communities, they're events for the group that was already there, and moreover don't saturate their given space.

And of course, said efficacy doesn't justify something like this:
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/261219266
It was created twenty hours ago, but hasn't managed to gain any traction at all. Absolutely zero exchanges, it's been necrobumped for the last 14 hours for no reason other than autism. Bad stuff.

>Generals make things faster because there's a need to maintain constant activity
It's also where you find the most dedicated people in concentrated amounts, can't discount that either.

>>118017
>It's also where you find the most dedicated people
This is true, but being dedicated doesn't translate to being creative, productive, producing good discussion, or even necessarily being particularly educated in the subject. The worst shitposters are the ones who are autistically dedicated to some bullshit crusade. When your community is based on one specific thing, it creates a necessity to continually engage with that thing in order to maintain your social connection with the group. Generals thus manufacture dedication and use it to fuel themselves in a self-perpetuating loop.

>>118018
I agree wholeheartedly, that's exactly what I meant to say. Most dedicated in this context also means most willing to entertain it.

This thread depresses me.
4/a is the only home that I have really known for many years. I've been wanting to emigrate for the past few of them. Slow boards like this one provide some much needed relief. But their lack of activity makes them fail as real alternatives.
Most of 4/a now feels like it's posts for the sake of posts. Content has been largely sidelined. It's a suffocating experience for me.

>>119387
I feel the same way. Sometimes I crave more discussion of anime I like than altchans provide and go back, but even with the higher activity there's less of what I want there. 4/a/ doesn't need alternatives, it needs a successor.

>>119387
>But their lack of activity makes them fail as real alternatives
It's why I'm always gung-ho about integrating (salvageable) new blood. The ability to have constant conversation at any time of day while giving people the ability to work on greater projects for the site, to me, supersedes any necessary cultural fun facts that people want to reminisce about with each other.

>>119392
Felt more like it back when fansubbers were in their prime and most of them were on the board.

>>119390
Can you tolerate the forums of list sites? That + altchans and mangadex comments is usually enough

>>119397
It lasted 49 days, one for every chapter of the manga, and yes, they find each other not just by looking at other daily threads but via announcements that make it explicit. The OP here announces that the next manga he'll dump is Breakfast at the Vivarium:
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/262216031/#262216414
And here on the separate Aho Girl daily someone else cross-links to it:
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/262173196/#262261448
>New daily! More from the Dowman daily, Breakfast at the Vivarium
"The Dowman daily" because its OP (or perhaps DM, dump master) previously storytimed Voynich Hotel, among others from the same author afaik. It's part of their "daily culture," as said one Anonymous in reference to Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro having its Mo chapter dumped in the ShimSim thread. You can also see up in Aho Girl's No. 262224865 them being congratulated over finishing Shimeji, which would appear to be a normal practice.

Actually, searching for "daily culture" led me to find some strong meta shittery that took place back in February of 2022:
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/233698939/#233783555
https://desuarchive.org/a/thread/233743039/#233751158
I'll give it a better read later, but it looks like they do understand the situation.

Yeah, actually, No.233798988 referred to him as "Dowman OP" all the way back in 2022. Wonder how they keep track of that.
>>119397
Forgot to reply to the second part: the meme consists of taking what someone said and making it into a portmanteau, always preceded by "shortened:" and followed by "don't shorten it."
>yokisex
>shortened: yex
>Don't shorten it
It's really quite simple, an enjoyable silly little thing.

>>120379
The terminology is weird since the catalog enables generals and suppresses non-generals, though I suppose if linking to the new thread isn't taboo on /vt/ then they could theoretically stay in their little box forever without even needed to see the other threads as they ctrl+f through, but the general sentiment of generalfags despising any larger culture and aggressively isolating themselves from anything different is par for the course. I am surprised /vt/ actually has non-general threads, however, since my brief looks at it made it seem like a /vg/-style collection of chatrooms.

>>120380
>The terminology is weird since the catalog enables generals and suppresses non-generals,
Nah, that's two different levels of discussion. You are talking about the general trend and what catalog use changed compared to the indexed view.
What they are frowning upon is not the followers of the general quickly finding the general, but rather that you are even looking at the overall board (on the catalog) instead of dedicating your entire attention to the thing that actually matters: the general.
Think of catalognigger as the new form of crossboarder.

>>120381
I get that, I just find it ironic that they've chosen that word to refer to someone who browses the board.

>>120381
>Think of catalognigger as the new form of crossboarder.
Exactly, exactly.

>>120379
Thought for a second it was neat because I assumed it'd be a preference for the index over catalog, but then I read the entirety of what you posted. I think I hate these people.

When I read that post I knew the anti-blog thread guy would hate it

stinky vtumors

>>120392
But once the transition is complete, the website becomes meaningless. I think Hiro's strategy of just letting shit fester is counterproductive because it deprives the board of its raison d'être. From there, it will just be a matter of deciding that a different platform is more accommodating to what the community actually wants. The technical limitations of 4chan make this practically an inevitability.

>>120391
Back then they were contained to iirc a single thread for all of Hololive and another for vtubers in general, those two still exist on /jp/. Maybe a Niji thread too. But now, there's ALSO a holo global general on /vt/ as well as a couple dozen other permanent threads for various tubers, and that's only Hololive's. They used to be under far bigger pressure, and you could say they did continue to spam the board.
>>120392
It's not exactly that they don't see them as board members, they do and everyone has it in mind, it's more like their relationship is one of antagonistic familiarity. Kinda like console warriors getting up to no good when others are trying to post about an exclusive game. A recurring theme.
>>120393
>From there, it will just be a matter of deciding that a different platform is more accommodating to what the community actually wants.
You could say the same about Twitter, where instead of making a traditional blog entry you find people chaining thirty tweets when they want to write something substantial. Nobody thinks it's good, that's why twitlonger exists, but they sure as hell aren't going to leave the platform. It's where everyone else is, and I assume many people keep up with several generals at the same time.

>>120393
>Hiro's strategy
You're implying he gives a shit about the site at all and isn't trying to sell it to someone else at this point. What was the last time he communicated with the userbase even?

Anonymous' field observations on modern thread structure and distribution

>>120379
I feel an intrinsic disgust at insular generals from my years of browsing several other boards, but in /vt/'s case the hostility to "catalogniggers" or tourists makes perfect sense to me. I don't think I've ever seen a board with more clearly divided cultures. The kinds of discussions in /#/ (numbers) or drama threads vs many of the smaller generals are incredibly different. And since the only form of interaction many of those generals' regulars have with the rest of the board is having to deal with random shitposters, I'm sure most of them would prefer not to be on /vt/ at all.

>>120404
>I'm sure most of them would prefer not to be on /vt/ at all
The majority of general posters on any board would be happier having their discussions elsewhere. A site that isn't constantly deleting their threads and having board events shaking things up and forcing them to bump more rapidly would make things a lot easier on them. Even when the mods take their side, forcing all discussion of their topic into their thread and deleting anything that takes up board space unnecessarily, the inherent structure of an imageboard conflicts with what they're trying to do. This can again be compared to people who jump through hoops to write long blogposts on Twitter or creators who complain about demonetization on YouTube. They would be better off going somewhere that is built for their style of community, but they refuse to leave even when a better option is available because they want visibility at all costs.

Honestly for the /vt/ general users it sounds like an anonymous forum would work the best

>>120407
Probably, though I don't see how you'd get habitual 4chan posters to migrate. Some people would stay no matter what, so you'd simply split an already small community.

>>118016
The biggest thing that's driven away people from 4chan is the cultural shift from OC is king to the current moderation's deification of their extremely narrow view of what's "on topic".
The original mission statement of 4chan has been lost. It's not supposed to be an ossified discussion forum, it's an "image"board. A great deal of why 4chan's devolved into the toilet for discussions people aren't allowed to have on the civie internet (hello every racist thrown off of reddit welcome to your new home~~~) is because that's what the mods have made the place into.
>>117978
I don't think you're all wrong. The general thread is in some respects self defense from the mods. All the traditional cultural threads on /a/ for example have been expunged in the name of them being off topic. DBS, for example, can tap the OP and say they're a thread about an anime/manga and while individual posters are frequently banned for going off topic, the general as their forum for those tangents remains. And so they evolve.
When I look at storytimes that aren't one anons autistic necrobump vigil, that's closer to what I see. A little circlejerk from ye olde days given license to not be deleted by the OP and the dumps.

>>117964(OP)
Sounds kinda gay

>>134478
No u, most definitely.

>>133234
That reddit thing is kind of interesting. r/anime would naturally be downwind of 4chan, so a blog thread telling people not to do the ronery thing kind of makes sense.
I remember back on 4/qa/ we'd talk about the "hima-fication" of generals- language dulling down to small words in short sentences unrelated to the thread's subject matter until a general thread becomes indistinguishable from another. I think reddit's awful UI would probably prevent that from happening, but I don't really care enough to look.
Kissu has definitely had quite a bit of discussion over its blog thread. It's a force of nature that must be corralled occasionally, but I think it's in a decent enough spot. It's allowed to exist as long as people keep it to blogging. People must do everything in their power to resist the desire to follow the path of least resistance and contain everything into one thread.

>I don't know the details of how /jp/'s originated either, maybe someone could expand on that. The only thing I know for sure is that it was already fully-formed by the time it reached /qa/.

I think it just transferred the ronery threads from /a/ with the creation of /jp/. I thought all that ironic "floor-shitting NEET" stuff is stupid and I couldn't tell you its origins.