4chan/Chronicle/qa

• DRAFT
  • 2025/01/18

History of 4chan's /qa/ - Question & Answer board

>why am I writing this

Personal endearment.

>but why now?

Arguably the most revisioned board history on the site.

>well then, what is it?

An offtopic & meta community composed of posters from disparate origins that died prematurely due to aggression from off-site cliques then became something else entirely.

Breakdown: Formative month (2015)

• Leftovers of moot's big AMA stream reminisce on nostalgic memories and ponder what to do with the board. The /qa/ charter gets drafted.

First Meta Period (2015-2017)

• /qa/ coalesces into a small collection of meta aficionados, karens crying to the mods and anons looking for an off-topic board that wouldn't get swarmed with weirdos and porn. Most generals get created.

Early raids & listing (2017)

• A series of high profile events causes /qa/ to appear on the map of a small number off-site cliques whose origins range from disparate boards, generals and the /jp/ Spin Off webring. They discover that /qa/ is practically unmoderated; Raids and angry protests ensue.

Great weeb-frog War (2018-2019)

• No-fun-allowed rejects from the spinoffs determine to turn /qa/ into their homeboard by aggressively botting up the place and personally gaslighing all passerbys. They get resisted by an equally intense group of locals with seeming ties to /jp/ who adopt smug frogs as their callsign; This years long flamewar practically depopulates the board.

Second Meta Period (2020)

• Mods figure out how to kill the spambots, causing the SpinOff clique to self-exile; Frogs essentially impose a short lived era of /int/-like frogposting☼

Soijak Raids & freezing. (2021)

• Through causes yet unknown, a /pol/-derived meme☼ turns /qa/ into a thousands strong community of middleschool kids; They cause site-wide havok and ultimately gets /qa/ frozen.

Epilogue

• All of /qa/ is concentrated on the 4chan Happenings General, which takes refuge on /trash/ (a gross mistake they came to regret)☼. /qa/ "lore", kekistani mythos and other bits and pieces of old memes are recycled by small clique of Soijak Party posters to create /qa2/

☼ needs verification

Basic demographics:

"old" /qa/

• metaposters
  • 4chan trivia aficionados --> made nice map threads and dug old pieces of OC
  • nostalgic oldfags (am I permitted to use this lingo?)
  • armchair admins --> countless foolish but well-meaning "how i will fix 4chan" threads.
  • internet hobbyists --> bibanon is here! - people who wished for a board best described as "/internet/ - Internet Culture" and found /qa/ it's closest equivalent
• complaintposters
  • The 4chan Karen --> only here to vent and call people names
  • Off-board Clique refugees --> when things got too heated and/or weird on other boards or sites, /qa/ would find itself hosting a thread to discuss the situation, not necessarily a problem, but they didn't find themselves obligated to respect the board ♫
  • /DELETEPOL/ --> primordial fire of all meta boards
  • /a/fags --> technically karens, but their numbers alone were enough to develop a persistent /a/ hatefandom
• sfwofftopicposters
  • board-tans general --> As drawthreads moved on to other fotms, teens found /qa/ as a refuge to safely ship anthropomorphic imageboards. more prolific than people imagine.
  • Happenings general --> Remained oddly consisted for the better part of 6 years.
  • 4chan cup ☼
  • [s4s] & /a/jp/ colonies --> other posters were ambivalent to their presence, but they were never aggressive and contributed large quantities of OC.

"late" /qa/ (2019/2020)

• late /qa/ metaposters --> jaded as they get
  • (Punished) Happenings general --> A thread denied it's board.
• /bant/ / /int/ type frogposting ---> nicer than they looked.

First Gen Raiders (2016-2017)

• SpinOff / /ghost/ cliques --> ota-ch, merorin & GNFOS
• /jp/ dissenters / OG frogposter
• /mlpol/ + /gsg/ + /intl/ + others --> not necessarily raiders, but used thie

Second Gen Raiders (2018-2019)

• Steamchat Clique / kissu.moe
• Frogposters ---> is a group that was 100% homegrown really a raider?
• atechan ---> Mostly hearsay. Got in a fight with kissu and supposedly, according to kissu, was a major spammer. Might be a nothingburger
• leebaiter / lee / leebot

Third Gen Raiders (2020-2021)

• Bant Cabal ☼
• Soyjak Party --> really, really don't wanna touch on this

☼ --> unconfirmed ♫ --> intl, gsg, infinity, and way, way more.

fat sack of loot:

classic that started it all: https://desuarchive.org/qa/search/image/5XOGOo6Y78jgow5f5t%2FYhw%3D%3D/page/82/

/gsg/ raids:

https://desuarchive.org/qa/thread/1220369/#1220369

https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/18852770/#18852809

early threadbombing:

https://desuarchive.org/qa/thread/1134747/#1135235

https://desuarchive.org/qa/thread/1673519/#q1673716

kissu astroturfing:

https://desuarchive.org/qa/thread/2007664/#2007735

listing sticky: https://desuarchive.org/qa/thread/1654916/#1690512

extremely important evidence: https://desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/qa/image/1496/55/1496556790721.png

curia: >Mass download every image hash uploaded to 4chan in the first two months of this year.

>Calculate the similarity of boards based on how their share image hashes

>Build a chart that shows overlapping userbases