/cyber/ - Cyberpunk & Science Fiction

Things fall apart.

>new owner removes board list

>I won't go there anymore

Did you forget the names of the boards?

/sec, /sci, /λ (also /lam), /diy, /lit, /drg, /zzz, /civ, /cult, /r.

I may have missed some. Also I just realized that some of the traditional unlisted boards are GONE! fucking appleshit.

Anyway, OP, just append the name of the board to the url of the site.

You should really learn how to use the internet at this point OP, not doing so isn't //cyber//

Why would Appleman do something like this without giving a heads up? It's annoying and the old boards are still up. That's just being really inconsistent. I don't know the secret boards, but they're gone now too? I kind of wish he added frames to the site if he was going to pull this kind of thing…

That's odd. I thought it was just a css bug.

nah there's a thread on /q/ where appleshit explains that it's to keep people out

>>45301

As if that needed any additional effort with how shit the site already is.

Here's Applebrain's statement.

————————

Yes there has been a thought process behind this decision. I could describe it, but even if I did so the description wouldn't do the thought process justice.

That said you asked for a description, so find your description below:

The main reasons for hiding the board list are

* people are complaining that the board list is too long or that their favorite board isn't there

* that they want <insert xyz> board reorganization strategy implemented

* People say they won't browse the site, if it has <boardx> or doesn't have <boardy>.

* People continue to break the rules and post soykaf instead of putting effort in their posts, hiding the board list is one of the many small ways the barrier to entry can be raised.

Other administration staff have suggested just deleting entire boards, but I didn't want to go down that path at this point. (E.g. delete /civ/, Delete all boards except /feels/)

* Everything wants different things, but instead of actually helping to realize them, they just complain and post soykaf

Possible benefits:

* Less posts on lainchan in general

* Less soykaf on lainchan

* Harder barrier to entry for new lainons that just come from 8chan or 4chan and mass post low quality soykaf. (Since I became admin, I focused on reducing barrier to entry and being nice and friendly, but this isn't making lainchan any better, so I will stop being as nice)

* More reason for lainons to think about what they post and where they post.

* More reason for lainons to build character through shared suffering, so that there are less posts that are just fighting with each other.

<insert your favorite> other reason here.

>>45298

Yes, you precious little faggot, I know how to check my internet history.

But I go on Lain to talk to other people, and now it's just going to be me and, well, you.

And I don't like you.

>>45304

>Less posts on lainchan in general

So he just wants to see the site turn into a sad circlejerk, and slowly die.

>>45306

how can lainchan be saved?

This is insanity. Bye lainchan. Loved ya, but… yeesh.

boards are back

>>45314

For now. But a precedent has been set, and Appleman's goals for the site are now clear.

>>45316

My point exactly. This kind of SECRET CLUBHOUSE FOR COOL PEOPLE attitude is exactly what killed Barbelith, and its successor Panopticon.

It was sad seeing Panopticon, every board on every subject completely empty, with a giant header over the whole site saying INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION.

Wow. Deleting the /cyb/ board on a cyberpunk board.

Who is this Appleman character anyway?

Is it just Kimmo Alm with a new IP?

>>45312

I don't know if it was ever really that good in the first place. It kind of had a novelty but what's left if you take that away, also making a bunch of more general boards was a bad idea

>>45323

also I tried to like the IRC but fled after being sickened by that one shoplifting tranny that can't stop typing like a pseudo intellectual

>>45320

People like to throw around the word "autistic" like it's an insult, but I wonder if Appleman genuinely is autistic. He seems to have no idea how human beings relate and communicate with each other.

>>45316

But can you really say somewhere like 4chan has any higher a post quality? If not lower?

>>45312

It can't. The only reason it worked in the first place was because it was the first cyberpunk board out there aside from the long-dead megachan one, and it was able to draw people from /g/'s cyberpunk general. It's frankly a miracle that it's still around, and I can't see Appleman doing any good to the site whatsoever.

Lainchan has been my favorite imageboard, maybe even favorite website for a while now. I even have a sticker for it on my laptop. I think it can still be 'saved', and I think if we if it does improve we can use these lessons and apply them to other sites. wWtching it be slowly ripped apart is very painful to watch.

I think the discussion about how to maintain quality on imageboards is a very important one to have to ensure the continuation of this platform. People seem to not understand, this type of website has always had a pretty dodgy signal to noise ratio even back in the days of 2007 4chan when I started using them. We can all agree that halfchan is a great example of what not to do so what do you guys think is the answer? Of course this is a complex question and there's almost certainly not one catch all solution but I am interested in your ideas. I really don't want to watch the fall of lainchan like I watched the fall of 4chan, especially since there aren't really any great alternatives.

My suggestions are as follows:

a) bring back /cyb/

b) use some sort of democracy when making changes, at the very least telling people what's going to happen before you just do it.

c)probably the most controversial, I think that they should remove /civ/

Please feel free to tell me why I'm wrong or other ideas, the only way to fix these sort of issues is to work as a community on it

>>45332

I don't know if anyone forgets but 4chan has a large userbase and a small moderator base that's overworked and can't contract or expand because the acceptance process is too strict. Moderation there breaks when the amount of users goes through the roof. Not to mention many of them moderate boards they are not even familiar with, which doesn't add to the speed.

>>45332

also remove /feels/, there are other places for that. Imagine if sushichan were to have a /feeels/ counterpart, the site would go to shit.

What I mean is, the site has a character of it's own, it's a technical discussion site. But everybody who uses imageboards has his own problems and is alienated from the normalfaggotry in one way or another. So everybody will want to dump their stuff in /feels/ and thus the site in general willbe infested by that mentality.

Another one, and I think this is a very important issue

>STOP BITCHING

So new posters come who are unfamiliar with the general tone of the site, and they start spouting memes, or judging people based on pure bullshit. A couple older guys get annoyed by this, and they start complaining that the site is going to shit, it's not what it used to be, fucking newfriends, etc. Then other people start to think "welp, this site is going to sht too!" and it just snowballs, and now discussion is about how shitty the site is, which makes the place shittier.

The solution is just stop bitching and be the change you want to see, cheesy as it sounds. Some good strategies that I've seen when some shitty memespouter or troll comes along are either tell him "hi friend, that is not how we do thing here" or whatever, or simply ignore them, report if needed.

Also I see that often people like to complain about stuff that is only natural in imageboards. Like it or not, most of us came from halfchan at some point, and we dragged some of the culture there without being fully aware of it. Sometimes others do, even if it's not intentionally. For example someone posts a pepe which is pretty much "hey everybody, I'm shitposting!!!". And now some uptight oldfag says "holy shit, we got the frogposters, this place is going to shit, brace yourselves, kill the admin, delete this site, I'm going to make my own obscure imageboard holy fuck I hate these people fuck fuck fuck".

You see, when you start having an attitude towards those who are new you're just making things bad for yourself and for everybody else, you're fucking making a storm out of nothing.

Just my two cents

>>45332

The discussion about how to improve the 'quality' of a board is as old as the internet, and not much new has been added since the usenet days.

I don't know how to "fix" lainchan, but if I were to redesign the imageboard concept i'd experiment with a few things. i would prefer software solutions to user problems over moderation solutions.

1. I'd get rid of inline replies. The problem with shitty posts is that they bait idiots into replying, which just bumps the thread which is visible by more retards. It's a negative loop.

2. Create a threads within threads, similar to slashdot/leddit. the old chronological format would be available, ofcourse, but the advantage of threads is that you can collapse a thread if it starts going retarded, hiding the shitty post and every retard that replies to it. This should also stop threads from getting completely derailed.

3. Sage enabled by default. on 2ch, sageposts outnumber bumping posts because people avoid bumping threads unless they have a reason to. Bumpposts would also have some weight to it, so every time you bump a thread, it will only bump half as high. This is circumventable by changing IPs, but so is everything.

4. Kill the concept of subject boards. Introduce thread tags instead. Subject boards are simply tag filters now. If you like /tech/ stuff but hate /fa/, just filter /fa/ tagged posts. The only thing worse than shitty posts are posts complaining about shitty posts. "Stop posting what i don't like" shazbotry is no longer an excuse because you can easily filter out topics that trigger you. some say it would leads to an echo chamber, but it's really the opposite because you have a variety of topics all mixed together now by default. This also gets rid of the problem of popular and unpopular boards.

5. Rule breaking posts are marked as trash instead of deleted. Any posts replying to trash is also trash. trash is hidden by default, but you can uncollapse it if you really want to get into an argument. You can also turn trash-vision on, which would be like removing any kind of content moderation completely.

I think moderators being obsessed with what is and isn't on topic is a mistake. Deleting perfectly fine threads that aren't really on topic is exceedingly harsh and is probably the #1 reason behind any kind of mod drama. I really don't like to delete posts in general and auto-sage totally off topic threads but that's not the ideal solution.

6. Not sure about this one, but the ability to mark posts as interesting. It's a very web 2.0 thing to have like buttons, but i don't think the idea behind it is bad if you hide how many likes you have to prevent like whoring. There will be no meaningless internet points, and chronological thread order will be the default viewmode.

7. Sort by reply # is a feature i always wanted in an Imageboard.

This rambling post is pretty off topic, but meta discussion about another site is also off topic on this board.

>>45336

>"holy shit, we got the frogposters, this place is going to shit, brace yourselves, kill the admin, delete this site, I'm going to make my own obscure imageboard holy fuck I hate these people fuck fuck fuck".

I hate these posts the most. Obsession over other peoples post quality is futile.

>>45338

Edited my own post. You know it's me because i always fuck up the capcode every single time.

>>45338

>I think moderators being obsessed with what is and isn't on topic is a mistake. Deleting perfectly fine threads that aren't really on topic is exceedingly harsh and is probably the #1 reason behind any kind of mod drama.

THIS. So much this was what killed Barbelith.

Flyboy and Haus would go through the entire site enforcing "ontopica", you were not allowed to digress from the thread subject, you were not allowed to waver from the board topic, and to add a level of Orwellian thoughtcrime, you were not allowed to start a topic on any subject that had been covered in a previous conversation in the permanent archive, or to reopen that topic.

It got to the point where Haus had to take steps to protect his RL identity, because there were people who genuinely wanted to kick his ass for his constant insults, overmoderation, sealioning, and accusing anyone who disagreed with him of homophobia.

As for Appleman being autistic… Yeah, I could believe it. Is his first language English? He has a very strange, stilted sentence structure.

>Yes there has been a thought process behind this decision. I could describe it, but even if I did so the description wouldn't do the thought process justice.

>That said you asked for a description, so find your description below:

>* More reason for lainons to build character through shared suffering, so that there are less posts that are just fighting with each other.

><insert your favorite> other reason here.

I mean, who talks like that? Is he trying to mansplain to us?

He sounds like a teenager trying to put on airs.

>>45338

You know, at least some of these are good ideas.

I've been playing with the idea of precisely that, of considering a new format that is not exactly that of imageboards but that in some way retains some of the essence of it (starting with anonymity).

Only that I'm not a webdev and I am also a lousy programmer in general, and I don't have the resilience or the time to get done one such project let alone administrate it.

I always get sidetracked.

One idea that I've had, probably in line with your current view, is to have only one board (akin to just do without boards entirely, one global space) and make the topics user-created by "general" threads. I know some people think they are canzer (for some reason (?)). My idea comes from wizchan/hob/ which is pretty much the embodiment of my idea (only just very hostile (more than lainchan even!!!)).

>>45344

I've had some similar ideas for a site with a single board. Perhaps instead of boards based on categories, threads could be sorted according to automatically-regenerating word clouds on the main page. That way, if a thread goes in a completely different direction, it effectively self-moderates into a new "category", no mod policing needed.

>>45338

Aren't inlining and threads within threads sort of the same thing? I like inlining

Overall that engineering approach over the moderator one i really like.

>>45336

>remove /feels/

This is a good idea

>stop bitching

This is actually a good point and I will admoit I an guilty of this from time to time

>>45338

These are all really fucking good ideas, I don't know how possible these are on 8ch but maybe we should give some of these a try here

Fixing these issues with software is the best course of action.

all chans need to die already tbh imo

>>45349

they're already dead, the culture is dead, we're just animating the corpse and pretending it's alive

Wow, Appleman must have been screwing with the filters and blocks, since he took over I've had posts automatically blocked for being too long, too short, too soon, "shilling" and "spamming porn links".

As it turns out, saying "hitler" in a post sets off the "shilling" block, and something to do with hyphens seems to set off the "porn" filter. And Appleman won't tell anyone the list of derezzed words, he says to stop CP spam.

>>45374

Damn. He really has gone nuts. I'll miss you, lainchan.

Just let it die already.

>>45376

I'm guessing it's going to stay alive for a little while, with 5 users and blocking everything but "thanks appleman\n\ncomment too short".

sage

>>45328

It's not a boolean choice between high- and low- barrier-to-entry. The idea here is that there has to be a balance.

>>45374

And then there's all the word filters, for enough common words that it begins to screw up links…

>>45376

I'd hate to see the Lainzine die with the site.

Maybe us and whatever other cyberpunk sites are still around can keep contributing and circulating it separately to whatever retardation is happening at Lain?

I don't think Kalyx and Appleman run the 'zine, do they?

>>45304

He should really learn the difference between, "Less," and, "Fewer."

Oh boy, look at me, I'm smug /cyber/ user.

I'm so above things, I'm going to laugh at Lainchan. Again. Its not like I'm butthurt about its attention whore user or something, not at all.

>>45570

Found the shazbot. Didn't the mod tell you to cut this shit out?

>>45571

Did you miss that caring about some dude in the sky is the exact fucking problem?

Yes, appleman is in fact "autistic" (he's not kanners but he's a sperglord to the max). He's a professional programmer from Australia who lives in Tokyo.

He's also a pretty nice guy who actually gets things done in terms of site maintenance. I've seen him get pissed off at himself for something taking a few hours longer than intended.

But he does not know how humans relate to each other, no. He's also incapable of delegating, which is a pattern i've seen in other places where a sperglord has been given a formal position in this way. He treats the site as "his personal property" in a way that a normal person would never do - he tries to control things via direct action that cannot be controlled.

So there is good and there is bad. On the other hand he also seems to get sad over this which implies an incentive to change.

Personal growth by being exposed to a situation that is unfamiliar is never wrong. I don't think he's ever been faced with a situation where someone has told him to his face "no, it's actually wrong to be rigid about things" - the incentives of modern society are such that doing things "right" is never wrong. Until you hit a management position which is what he just did.

>>45325

To be fair, since lainchan is supposed to be a cyberpunk imageboard as a whole, from a certain POV it makes no sense to concentrate the cyberpunk aspect in a single board, when what was discussed on /cyb/ could have been easily discussed on other boards in the first place.

>>45338

I think I remember seeing a really small imageboard that had at least (or something similar) to your suggestions 2 to 5. I'll see if I can manage to find it (or if its still even alive) for the discussion's sake.

While the new management could use some work, I think what is really killing lainchan is it's small size. I know the general theory is smaller = higher quality, but in this instance smaller means that the 3-4 loud, toxic, ideology driven users make up a third of posts, derail threads, and spout their ideological bullshit and biases at everyone who triggers them (and everything triggers them). It's also a problem that feeds into itself. These users seek to be the center of attention, and the small user base gives them a soap box. New users or users who are just tired of their bullshit leave, and all that is left is those willing to feed the narcissists and trolls.

I had hoped that the abundance of ideologues alienating users in the name of inclusion would die down after the election, that seems not to be the case though.

>>45604

There has been ideas laid forth to the effect of simply removing any sort of political discussion board period.

Hosting political discussion is overwhelming. If you start to discuss politics at the dinner table you will _never_ digress into talking about programming techniques in the same discussion. Digressing into politics from programming is common however. It is a magnet of discussion that steals mindshare.

>>45605

I'm not sure removing boards would be enough. Politics has wormed it's way into technology (i know in reality it has always been there, but it's only recently gotten more complex and drawn the attention of more political camps) and it's hard for mods to decide where the line between "reasonable discussion" and "off topic/derailing" when a political element may be relevant to a topic. It's even harder for them to do so in an unbiased way. It's very easy for a person with a modicum of power to accidentally create their own echo chamber.

It's a bit easier with purely technical topics, but cyberpunk and and even security in many cases has some inherently political aspects. It should be possible to have civil conversations on these aspects without screeching incoherently at one another across the wire, but the internet as a whole seems to have forgotten how.

I agree though that they should try to remove more political boards at least on a trial basis. It's worth a shot, but I'm a little worried it could have the opposite of the intended effect. Regardless, I think whatever he does, appleman needs to act soon if he doesn't want the community to stall out and fade away, if it hasn't begun already.

>>45605

The "political" parts of cryptology, security and programming are non-inflammatory.

The only inflammatory part of programming that is political as of late is the sjw-reactionary strife over things like github, mozilla or the general effort to be more inclusive towards women (and arguably letting ideological whackjobs into positions of power formerly reserved for people with either purely financial or technologically creative motives.)

>>45607

(cont.)

This conflict is however _unrelated_ to security, programming etc. in the sense that i never see it come up when in a discussion about either legal or technical issues regarding serious topics in security or privacy or programming or whatever. It is an entirely separate domain of activity that has grown like a cancer on top of the technology community.

A discussion about how to not have your equipment confiscated in a border check or encryption is inherently political but it's not the same thing as the toxic sjw-radmasc bantering.

>>45390

I don't think they exclusively control the lainzine, and is kalyx continuing to be an admin, or did he leave all that when he sold to appleman?

>>45304

>* People continue to break the rules and post soykaf instead of putting effort in their posts, hiding the board list is one of the many small ways the barrier to entry can be raised.

I'm willing to bet you just flushed a majority of your userbase down the toilet.

>>45680

Count me among them. lainchan used to be a weird, chill, cool place. But now it's just meh. Putting an autistic autocrat obsessed with post quality in charge is a sure-fire way to kill a userbase.

>>45695

you mean this thread?

You're just bumping it, nobody cares that much about lainchan to be making a thread about it.

On the topic of bumping, sage

Honest to god the reason I stopped visiting lainchain was the CSS looks like ass.

I haven't bothered with lainchan much since they deleted 4(?) boards and made one "culture" board to replace them.

>>45316

But User, anons were creating entry barriers by themselves even without administrative help since forever:

>create secret meme language and gotcha unspoken rules

>scream LURK MOAR NEWFAG at newcomers who fail to follow rules and use language correctly

>attach shocking images to your post

>people now avoid your board because they don't want to be caught with fashy gay nigger guro cp on their monitors

>pollute conversation with noise

>only dedicated person can now filter throw tons of shitposts to keep track of the conversation

People love their rites of passage so much, they create them unconciously and without any coordination.

>>45761

>pollute conversation with noise

Do you really think this is a legitimate strategy?

lainchan was taken over by fbi and destroyed like a year ago or so.

>>45765

As I said, it's not concious effort, it just what ends up happening.

>>45773

FBI? No. A complete no fun allowed fucktard? Definitely.

>>45761

>pollute conversation with noise

Yeah it's great when you're trying to talk about woodworking or something and there's a hundred posts about jews and niggers and racemixing.

>>45830

Modern internet; I think we're past the point of no return

fixing thread

>>48356

>Fixes thread

>Sages it so nobody knows

Thanks BO.

>>50557

>Seph treats donations like a personal piggy bank

Sounds like Kalynx v2.0.

At least "she" should be more enjoyable to watch go on a masturbation spree (when everything falls apart in the end).

>>50559

Sometimes I think about starting up an alternative site to both, something without obsessive-nitpicky-rule-enforcement and without donations (I'm pretty okay financially, hosting an equivalent site is certainly no hardship for me).

But then I wonder if I really need that sort of stressor in my life. I just don't think I have the time to do a decent job of it, the temperament to keep it going long-term, or the technical skills to do it properly and securely.

>>50564

Honestly the last thing we need is more fragmentation.