About 4chans current stats and infrastructure(content.4chan.org)
content.4chan.org
About 4chans current stats and infrastructure
http://content.4chan.org/tmp/extensions.html
56 comments
If you look at ClouldFlare's report, Google Analytics misses at least 30% of the pageviews, so there's a good chunk of unaccounted visitors. You are more like a third/quarter the size.
A lot of anons are actively blocking online tracking technologies, much more than the usual 1% that run NoScript.
And heck, some access 4chan over Tor, which means any statistics about latency and location are quite probably wrong.
(You might think Tor is slow for image-heavy sites, in my experience it isn't. Tor is high-latency, but throughput is reasonable)
(You might think Tor is slow for image-heavy sites, in my experience it isn't. Tor is high-latency, but throughput is reasonable)
Minecraft videos are regularly in the top 10 most viewed on YouTube. I think it's that Minecraft is huge plus the players are very engaged on the internet with it.
Say what you want about the quality of the game (I personally detest many of its more recent changes and its loss of clear direction), Minecraft has a huge and very, very active community. Notch might not have cracked designing a game, but he's certainly cracked making a game community.
A game that is fun and popular is by definition well designed I would say.
I suppose. I used to find it fun, but some of the changes made more recently have drained much of the fun from it, for me.
Could you tell what changes exactly are you talking about?
Hunger, biomes (although that's an old change now), Endermen, end game.
How on earth does Cloudfare survive charging $200 for nearly 2PB of traffic? Is the profiling/retargeting business really that lucrative? Do big accounts like that have some kind of revshare deal or mandatory link skimming?
To be honest I don't personally think the traffic that some of the accounts running under the free/$20 plans are sustainable. I know for my part we've been running several very large sites through their service which cut our bandwidth usage approximately in half. That's the level of bandwidth that was costing about $3k+ all by itself per month.
Doing the math, I think regardless of Cloudflare and their economies of scale, they will start having to charge more at some point for traffic. I know we'd pay it but I have to imagine for large traffic, but small income sites (which 4chan counts among them I think?) this could present an issue.
Doing the math, I think regardless of Cloudflare and their economies of scale, they will start having to charge more at some point for traffic. I know we'd pay it but I have to imagine for large traffic, but small income sites (which 4chan counts among them I think?) this could present an issue.
You underestimate the positive effect massive scale has in the bandwidth market.
Cloudflare offers a good value, but not having things like html caching is frustrating and one of the reasons we're not using them.
Actually CloudFlare does do HTML caching. Details are here: http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pagerules-advanced-ca...
ok thanks, didn't realize that had changed, will revisit
Where are you getting $200 from?
That's what they charge afaik - $200/mo flat rate.
https://www.cloudflare.com/business
https://www.cloudflare.com/business
I would guess they are paying considerably more than that to host 4chan. Note there's also a $3k+ enterprise plan.
From the article: We pay for CloudFlare too. While they offer free and $20 "Pro" plans for most of their customers, large businesses and enterprise customers are a different ballgame. It isn't cheap—far from it.
From the article: We pay for CloudFlare too. While they offer free and $20 "Pro" plans for most of their customers, large businesses and enterprise customers are a different ballgame. It isn't cheap—far from it.
Duplicate : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4206378 (+ he used https)
I've always seen 4chan as the scumhole of the internet. It scares me that it's so huge. Do I have a wrong impression of it?
Think of it like a really crowded dormitory whose lower floors are overrun by a never-ending frat party. The first person you run into when you show up will likely be projectile vomiting, or teabagging someone who passed out. Bored jerks are free to wander upstairs and urinate in any room in the building, and the deafeningly loud music and incoherent screaming is a backdrop (albeit distant at times) to every stimulating conversation that takes place.
If you want to enjoy yourself, you kind of have to know where you're going, and how to knock. Even on "quiet" boards like /lit/, the front page is churning with new threads. Everything is steeped in weird slang and inside jokes. There is no respect for newcomers. People who don't "get" the culture are dismissed with "lurk moar" or simply ignored.
Also, there is always someone, somewhere, who will find any given post hilarious.
If you want to enjoy yourself, you kind of have to know where you're going, and how to knock. Even on "quiet" boards like /lit/, the front page is churning with new threads. Everything is steeped in weird slang and inside jokes. There is no respect for newcomers. People who don't "get" the culture are dismissed with "lurk moar" or simply ignored.
Also, there is always someone, somewhere, who will find any given post hilarious.
Sort of. Each board is more or less its own community (much like how different subreddits are independent of each other on Reddit). /b/ and /v/ (Random and Video Games) contain the cause of the great majority of 4chan's esteemed reputation.
The other boards are a lot more calm and enjoyable. But some people enjoy the chaos :)
The other boards are a lot more calm and enjoyable. But some people enjoy the chaos :)
So far 4chan is one of the last places I found which still fosters an absolute anything-goes policy. It is almost a last frontier of a world where people can dump their thoughts, ideas just without having to use any form of self censorship. Once one gets over some idealistic expectation how other people should behave it is, at least from my perspective, a truly liberating experience.
Not really, no. I think it's size is more indicative of the standard age range it draws (a younger audience).
People keep telling me that there are decent parts of the place. Each time I try to venture in it is such a dizzying mess that I stopped trying.
It makes me feel old.
People keep telling me that there are decent parts of the place. Each time I try to venture in it is such a dizzying mess that I stopped trying.
It makes me feel old.
I've seen a bunch of people recommend /tg/ (tabletop gaming), that it was totally different from the awful parts of 4chan. I went there, and I think I had to scroll down half a page to see people tossing around f-g and f-ggot.
Yeah, no thanks.
I still think "Reddit for grownups" is a potentially viable business. A semi-moderated community of communities with no tolerance for low-effort garbage or trolling. As it is now, there are plenty of decent topical fora scattered around the internet, but they're mostly not great technically or culturally. I'm not sure exactly how, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement.
Yeah, no thanks.
I still think "Reddit for grownups" is a potentially viable business. A semi-moderated community of communities with no tolerance for low-effort garbage or trolling. As it is now, there are plenty of decent topical fora scattered around the internet, but they're mostly not great technically or culturally. I'm not sure exactly how, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement.
Something Awful on particular subforums are good for this. It has its nonsense areas just like 4chan and Reddit, but it's worth a look. Catchphrases, trolling, low-content and the like are heavily policed.
> I still think "Reddit for grownups" is a potentially viable business.
It's as simple as setting up http://reddit.com/r/redditforgrownups and moderating it heavily. (Well, not really - you won't make any money from setting that up - but at the same time, why would I pay you for a reddit clone when there are already subreddits with good moderators?)
It's as simple as setting up http://reddit.com/r/redditforgrownups and moderating it heavily. (Well, not really - you won't make any money from setting that up - but at the same time, why would I pay you for a reddit clone when there are already subreddits with good moderators?)
To add to what has been said - on 4chan, the very "controversial" topics are beaten over and over and over again.
Go to /pol/ and you will see at least two rasict threads at any given moment, then some other name-calling and misoginy. Go to /g/ and you will see non-stop dumb OS wars ("Mac OS X sucks!" - "STFU, your mother is a whore"), and so on.
Feminism, homosexuality, religion, those topics are always popular no matter the board.
Go to /pol/ and you will see at least two rasict threads at any given moment, then some other name-calling and misoginy. Go to /g/ and you will see non-stop dumb OS wars ("Mac OS X sucks!" - "STFU, your mother is a whore"), and so on.
Feminism, homosexuality, religion, those topics are always popular no matter the board.
It would help to add that while the age of everyone posting is a broad range, the most active users are teenagers and people in their early 20s. At least that's the impression i get after browsing for a few years.
Also, while it could be said that notoriety attracts a good crowd for them, so does their anime discussion as there are several boards dedicated to different styles of artwork (and, of course, the fact that the entire website is styled after another hugely popular Japanese Anime board, 2chan.net).
Also, while it could be said that notoriety attracts a good crowd for them, so does their anime discussion as there are several boards dedicated to different styles of artwork (and, of course, the fact that the entire website is styled after another hugely popular Japanese Anime board, 2chan.net).
Maybe you've got a wrong impression of humanity?
4chan's comment system is awful. I still don't really understand how it works. It seems like they could improve the design and pipe in new comments as they arrive, thus negating all the extra server load caused by browser extensions refreshing every second.
Of course, I have no experience dealing with ~1B page views/month.
Of course, I have no experience dealing with ~1B page views/month.
>4chan's comment system is awful.
They better change it to be successful.
Hacker newsers: don't get caught into this silly line of thinking. Remember myspace? Remember how many people wanted glittery text of their name?
They better change it to be successful.
Hacker newsers: don't get caught into this silly line of thinking. Remember myspace? Remember how many people wanted glittery text of their name?
The comment system is part of its charm, it comes from the japanese imageboards.
What's not to understand? It's so simplistic it can't be simplier.
You just have a thread with no hierarchy (except for the opening post). You can "reply" on some post in some thread, but the "reply" is just marked by post ID.
The 4chanX helps with this.
You just have a thread with no hierarchy (except for the opening post). You can "reply" on some post in some thread, but the "reply" is just marked by post ID.
The 4chanX helps with this.
[deleted]
What kind of comment system do you want?
I'd write something in detail but I really can't guess what your complaint would be. Unless you want recursive threading or tags.
I'd write something in detail but I really can't guess what your complaint would be. Unless you want recursive threading or tags.
Install the mentioned 4chanx extension. Hovering a quoted post ID will actually show the post, and you can also see/expand replies to a post in the top right.
The chaotic comment system IS the application. There's nothing else and that's what makes it so unique.
One really impressive thing to me about 4chan's infrastructure: All traffic is served via 4 machines. Two webservers, a database and an admin/cron box. 22M uniques on 4 machines is insane. Hopefully Chris will write more about his setup some day. (Note: these boxes were directly serving all traffic up until ~6 months ago when Cloudflare was introduced)
Thats interesting. And 4chan had only one guy (moot) managing all of this makes it even more impressive.
By the way, some of the posters commenting on 4chan degrading morality. This is an anon forum and its just a reflection of our society! The Guardian summarized 4chan as "lunatic, juvenile... brilliant, ridiculous and alarming". Perhaps the best description for 4chan.
And remember 4chan gave us LolCats, Memes, Rage faces etc.
By the way, some of the posters commenting on 4chan degrading morality. This is an anon forum and its just a reflection of our society! The Guardian summarized 4chan as "lunatic, juvenile... brilliant, ridiculous and alarming". Perhaps the best description for 4chan.
And remember 4chan gave us LolCats, Memes, Rage faces etc.
Wouldn't uploading their static assets to Amazon's S3 or something like that easy the burden on their servers? Wouldn't the extra cost of a service like that aliviate the load on their backend, and thus, save them more resources?
I always thought that was the most compelling feature of AWS S3, besides the "unlimited storage".
My understanding is, not at the scale they operate at. You're not saving any database lookups, and their bandwidth is probably cheaper. Plus the lifetime of their uploads is extremely limited - an hour or two?
Does anyone have any information about their database and the rest of the software that runs the site? Caching methods, if any? 4chan's stats vs their hardware and cost structure is mind blowing to me.
These are our stats for minecraftforum.net (last 30 days):
> Visits: 33,793,899 > Unique Visitors: 11,094,806
A forum for an indie game is half the size of 4chan; the biggest western forum. Pretty neat. We're also bigger than 4chan in the UK. I'm not sure if this makes 4chan small or Minecraft huge :p