Futaba Channel

Futaba Channel (ふたば☆ちゃんねる) is a Japanese imageboard.

Contents [hide]

1 Overview

2 Features

2.1 del Function

2.2 Thread isolation

2.3 Mobile Phone Futaba

3 Residents

3.1 Administrator

3.2 Deleter

3.3 Toshiaki

4 Culture

5 Impact

6 Imageboards Outside Japan

7 Related Articles

8 External Links

9 Article in Other Languages

Overview

Futaba Channel (ふたば☆ちゃんねる, "Double Leaf Channel" or "Two Leaf Channel") or 2chan (not to be confused with 2channel) is a imageboard made as a refuge for 2channel users when 2channel was on the verge of shutting down.

Futaba Channel contains imageboards and textboards ranging of many topics such as otaku culture, food, oekaki, sports, and more.

Features

del Function

A function added to each board of Futaba Channel on September 27, 2008, to report offending images and request deletion.

A hyperlink with the text "del" is created in the upper right corner of the thread or response, and clicking on it will open the "deletion request form" page.

Thread isolation

On some boards, when a thread's del count exceeds a certain number, it becomes invisible to the regular catalog and is "isolated". The only way to see these isolated threads is to type in the address directly, or to check the "history" tab for those who posted in the thread before it was isolated.

The threshold for isolation is said to be less than 1% of the residents, according to a study by a volunteer.

In the past, threads were moved to a special board called "隔離" (Isolation) where they could be viewed, but that board has since disappeared. So if you don't know the URL of the isolated thread, you won't be able to see it.

Mobile Phone Futaba

This is a browsing and posting section designed for cell phone users. Except for the introduction page and the main menu, the rest of the site can only be viewed from cell phones. Del function and ID/IP browsing are not available and having some boards not supported.

Residents

Although there are many other boards on Futaba Channel, the term "Residents of Futaba" usually refers to the residents that came from 2channel.

After establishing its own culture, the site has undergone several splits and mergers and has become mainly composed of so-called students (university students) and working adults.

Today, it is said to be attracting younger users such as middle and high school students, and the percentage of such users is increasing.

Administrator

The administrator of Futaba Channel does not have a specific name, and has never appeared in an official capacity as the administrator of Futaba Channel.

Their gender is unknown and rarely responds to residents' posts, and rarely gathers opinions from Futaba users about the site's management policy. In the past, their management policies were very whimsical and often made the residents laugh or confused. Whenever a post is made as an administrator in Futaba, the administrator name "administrator" (in red) is displayed.

Since there is no publicly accepted name, the residents of Futaba call them "janitor-san". They where a person with little exposure, which is rare for an anonymous board administrator who often causes conflicts with residents due to there management policies, principles, and posts.

Because they never showed their face. They where used as a source of many stories and collages, such as being a beautiful woman, a beautiful girl, a dog, an organization, or actually a program that does not exist.

From the latter half of 2007 to around 2008, there has been a lot of activity, such as the active introduction of affiliates, the addition of del functions, the introduction and abolition of servers and boards, provider restrictions, and the removal of criticism of the administration.

In response to this, the administrator has stated that "I have been the administrator since the beginning and have not changed".

Deleter

A person who deletes images, threads, and responses on behalf of the administrator, apparently introduced around the same time as the del function. When a response is deleted by a Deleter, the email field and the body of the response are changed to a single word: "なー".

According to the administrator, there are seven or eight of them, but since there has been no further announcement, the details of their selection criteria, deletion criteria, deletion authority, and whether they really exist in the first place are still unknown.

Toshiaki

See Toshiaki

Culture

The fact that it is favored by people with various hobbies and interests remains unchanged, but as is usual with any community that has been around for a long time, conflicts have arisen due to differences in the values of the users and the attitudes of different generations.

There is rarely any discussion of unification, and any attempt to form a consensus is met with strong opposition.

The website gain many characters and memes over the years with some spreading outside of the site.

Impact

In the past, there were no imageboard with this kind of purpose outside Japan, and this had an impact on people who were interested in Japanese culture.

This led to the creation of 4chan), which the 4chan administrators refer to as Futaba's unofficial sister site. This is a site that has appropriated the image board script used in Futaba and was created mainly for English speaking users.

In addition to 4chan, there is also krautchan, a group of similar imageboards from Germany. In the international exchange board, people from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia are very active, and English is used exclusively for exchange. In addition, there is IIchan in Russia and Komica in Taiwan.

Futaba Channel's own response to overseas access is to allow browsing, but not writing. There are some overseas users who get information on Japanese otakus through Futaba.

Futaba Channel tends to be called 2chan due to it's site address (www.2chan.net) among English speaking users. This has caused confusion whether or not 2chan refers to Futaba Channel or 2channel.

Some memes have made it to western spaces such as OS-tan and Nijiura Maid.