4chan/Staff

Note: UNDER CONSTRUCTION. WE ARE DOING IT. WE ARE MAKING IT HAPPEN.

4chan's staff, formally known as Team 4chan since Aug. 2004, has an internal structure more complex than the usually believed Jannies and Mods.

This page deals with all known formal and informal roles staff operated including external services (i.e. lawyers), and to whom the positions were given over time. For roles that were never formally (or publicly) credited, this article will try to approximate them into a coherent frame.

The objective is to give credit where credit's due and make sure no one is forgotten. Handles may be named freely, criteria for having a "section" is having done something of note that involves 4chan. Names and personal lives of staff members are of no interest unless directly related to events in 4chan and/or voluntarily disclosed to the community (e.g. no doxing).

Note: Don't try to contact or witch hunt anyone—they will promptly tell you to fuck off. Janny "doxes" have already been spammed by the butthurt thousands of times by now.

Staff Enrolment

On August 21 2005, during the Otakon 2005 4chan Panel, team 4chan reveals they have a total of 40 moderators, but only 15 active moderators.

On May 13, 2013, moot hinted that Team 4chan was composed of "more than 25, less than 50" members and that around 4 people were the core team (n.b. in all likeliness, either: moot, MVB, desuwa, KFF; or excluding moot: RapeApe, MVB, desuwa, KFF).

On January 21, 2015, moot mentioned that there are a grand total of 104 4chan staff members.

On August 13, 2018, a fired janitor mentioned that there are a approximately 130 members on the 4chan staff team. About 110 are janitors, and 20 are mods and managers.

In 2022, a Brazilian janitor (AKA J-Anon) showed that there were around 40+ different moderators on the mod team.

On April 25, 2025, the /qa/ hacker leaked the full staff list. Corrected to de-facto roles, 4chan in 2025 has 222 staff members, among them: 4 Administrators (1 Owner, 1 Manager, 1 Systems Administrator, 1 Lead Developer), 56 Moderators, 162 Janitors. Post-hack, this number has been reduced by, at most, 1/5th.

Staff Structure

Owner

The person who owns 4chan Community Support, LLC and it's trademarks. They have the final word in all matters.

By tradition, the current owner posts with the ## Administrator capcode. On paper, moot has access to the ## Founder capcode, but it has never been used.

Current

• Since Sep. 2015 - Hiroyuki Nishimura
  

Hiroyuki Nishimura is the owner of 4chan. An entrepreneur who has been directing tech companies since 1998. He rose to fame as the creator of 2channel and co-creator of Nico Nico Douga and had been an acquaintance of moot since they met in South By Southwest 2011. Hiroyuki purchased 4chan in September 21, 2015. The previous year, he had lost 2ch in a coup by (the also couped) 8chan's owner Jim Watkins over a data leak and payment processors dispute that ended in a quasi-legal domain seizure. His initial months were considered affable, however it was short lived - Hiro destroyed his reputation by pushing for malicious ads and borderline-scam schemes such as forcing UI changes that posters had to buy a pass to vote on reverting. Since testing the waters with a potential 4chan vtuber in 2018, he's has barely interacts with the site, relegating administration to the Manager position.

An actual celebrity in Japan, known for 2ch and his hot takes, you can usually find him live streaming on his YouTube channel or posting his opinions on his X Account. Don't expect him to talk about 4chan in any way though (but he did come to check on things & tweeted when the site got hacked in April 2025)

Former

• 2015-2022 - Good Smile Company, KK.
  

Good Smile Company is a Japanese toy designer focused on figurines. On Sep. 2015 they bought a 30% stake of 4chan alongside Nishimura and Nishimura's company (representing Nishimura). It was found out (and started making newslines) due to the Buffalo shooting, GSC choose to sell their stake in June 2022. If it was bought by Nishimura or someone else, it's unknown.

• 2003-2015 - moot (Christopher Poole)
  

moot is the founder of 4chan. He started the site at 15 years of age joking around with the Raspberry Heaven community. With support from RH and Something Awful he managed the site through several shut downs, going thousands into debt and countless law enforcement subpoenas. Famous for coining phrases such as "I wish to be the little girl". Somewhat impulsive, adding and removing board features like forced anonymous and IDs from boards several times. Every once in a while, he'd go nuts, grab a board and put eye-melting CSS and spinning dick .gifs everywhere. He had a strong social presence between 2005 and 2008, hosting official 4chan panels with personal friends and moderators alike, by the turn of 00s, 4chan had turned him into a bona-fide celebrity. He dated Maddeth during 2008 (dumb gossip only 00s #4chan regulars would know).

Due to college and some his closest associates retiring, moot sightings go down significantly until 2012 with a renewed public presence, doing TED talks, several interviews, a personal blog and forging ties to people in Internet media, tech and journalist circles. From then on moot pushes a general legal, backend and frontend modernization, creating 4chan, LLC. in the process. According to him, this was intended to let 4chan run independently. At the same time, he set up the Canvas Network start up inspired on the form of remix culture that 4chan championed, albeit the venture closed by 2014. moot leaves the administrator position in January 2015 after the Fappening saw him receive multiple legal threats and the mishandling of the GamerGate controversy affected his personal life. moot sold the site to Hiroyuki Nishimura in Sep. 2015 and has since cut contact with all things Internet, refusing any press interviews. Fun fact: He's an IRC OP (can kline) at Rizon. moot has also gotten his website and socials (i.e. twitter, tumblr) excluded from the wayback machine, but not from archive.today.

Roles

Site Administrators

An administrator is a managerial position within a website's staff. They are the people who call the shots and determine site policy, and manage the account (privileges) system. In small websites, the line between site administrator and system administrator is not properly distinguished, and admins end up having full server access, with this being the case for 4chan until the mid 2010s. Traditionally, 4chan's owner is the head administrator and only person allowed to use the ## Administrator capcode.

With moot's departure in Jan. 2015, the system administrator (MVB), lead developer (Desuwa) and manager (RapeApe) became an admin triumvirate in order manage the site on moot's stead. With Nishimura's acquisition of 4chan in Sep. 2015, the role has been reduced to a purely managerial role, with admin access distributed among key developers and managers, while site decisions were relegated to the manager.

Current

• Since Sep. 2015 - Hiroyuki Nishimura
• Since Jan. 2015 - RapeApe

De-facto

e.g. Managerial. Don't decide site policy.

• Since Jan. 2015 - desuwa
• Since Jan. 2015 - Mr. VacBob (MVB)

Former

• 2003-2014 - moot
• 2004-2005 - W.T. Snacks

Nicknames / Handles: SQ, W.T. Snacks !TcT.PTG1.2

W.T. Snacks joined team4chan in the August 2004 revival as the frontend developer, and occasional admin. He programmed the Futallaby v08 update, a lot of vital changes to the UI (reply with an image, quoting, hiding, information about posts and more), later making the admin tools FutaTools, FutabaLight, and the ban management panel. In October 2004 he jokingly made a /b/ - 4CHAN SUX board on his personal site 8chan.net.

Snacks came together with the Studio Cookie Thievery team (with fellow members 5 and RapidKimba also becoming mods). He hung out with his own clique and made a /5/ joke board. He later unveiled his radio show, Midnight Snacks, through 4chan. His antics and extremely arbitrary bans made him site-famous, fact that bothered moot (n.b. who may have felt he was overinflating his importance). By mid 2005 the relationship had soured. moot talked Snacks into starting a custom project involving a "map" (possibly related to 4meet), Snacks agreed but did not reciprocate. The situation escalated into an argument resulting in Snacks getting fired. Despite this, Snacks remained in talking terms with moot and team4chan, was a regular at #4chan and #raspberryheaven, co-hosted the 4chan Panel of Otakon 2005 and guest-starred in Otakon 2006 (while running a How to Survive Comic Market (Comiket) panel with Rapidkimba and Saber) and Otakon 2007 by "photo-bombing" the panels. In 2024 he was featured in an interview in the netflix documentary The Antisocial Network, which he later denounced and stated he was not informed of the near-libelous themes. (ref: IOU)

world4ch

• 2004-2005 - shii

Nicknames / Handles: menchi, shii !1PgDcaEL5s

Originally a World2ch regular known as Menchi, he tried to take down 4chan thinking it was stealing world2ch's fame. Had a change of heart and returned as shii. He wrote the 0ch Perl-to-PHP translation called shiichan, used to host the 4chan BBS textboards and eventually became a mod. On December he opened world4ch, a shiichan update with new features that later got ported to 4chan (i.e. dynamic frames). Cold quit in January after he tried crosslinking between 4-ch.net and 4chan and moot told him off. According to an anon, he got demoded a couple months later over drama in /f/. Despite tensions and some pretty open snide remarks, Shii and moot remained on talking terms. He hosted the Anonymous BBS panel on Otakon 2006 and was invited to speak about it during 4chan's Panel, with moot describing him as the "pioneer of Anonymous" (n.b. Anonymous culture).

Shii famously got banned from Something Awful during one of the site's "may be a pedophile" purges in 2005, according to RH Wiki and one anon's post, because he was pedolarping too hard (read: being unfunny) on FYAD, causing people to look him up, spiraling into a witch hunt that got CV, Saber and other RH members banned. He became a 4-ch mod and later secretareaofvipquality.com (/saovq/) mod, where a meme about stalking shii got out control and caused him to quit the Internet altogether. Shii ran a personal wiki called Everything Shii Knows which became the source of many urban myths about 4chan. He was also a Web Archive admin (And deleted some evidence of his involvement in world2ch and 4chan saved in there) and a Wikipedia admin (where he stored a list of all his anime pages). (ref IOU) Shii also wrote commentary for the book It Came From Something Awful, describing Raspberry Haven as essentially a boys club.

Note: He never disclosed his name. Do not add it.

not4chan

• 2004-2006 - Saber (Joe)

Started out as an /l/ board mod in 2003 or 2004. When 4chan was having problems getting advertisers due to the controvertial /l/ and /sm/ boards, Saber offered to administrate a separate website with it's own domain but a shared database, not4chan.org. What little remains from that era is screenshots of Saber trying to keep pedophiles away from the site. Saber was one of the famous "banned from SA" RH members of 2005, banned specifically for running not4chan. The site was closed in Jul. 24 2006 and moot and saber refused to disclose why, anons speculated it was due a bout of paranoia over the upcoming PROTECT Act of 2003's passing into law in Jul. 27. (n.b. an exasperated shut jokingly saying "we are all getting arrested" during the Otakon 2006 panel lends some credibility to this theory).

Saber retires from team4chan but remains a regular on the IRC for a while. Days later he attended Otakon 2006 and ran the Surviving Comic Market (Comiket) panel with Snacks and RapidKimba, and ran some damage control about not4chan on the 4chan Panel. He previously attended Otakon 2005 as part of the team4chan delegation and was seen attending Otakon 2007.

System Administrators

Also known as sysadmin & "the servers guy"

Sysadmins are the people who watch over the servers of a website, be it physically watching the site's own hardware, as managers in colocation centers, or through admin access through a server hosting service. They have absolute control of a website, including it's software stack, database, account management system and the ability to directly push changes to site code. On small websites, owners tend to fulfil the site administrator and systems administrator role simultaneously. In 4chan's case, there's always been a dedicated sysadmin who'd take care of running diagnostics and site statistics.

The role for the first years was informal, taken by volunteers to help moot who at the time knew little of server management and did not have the time for it. This changes with DONATE OR DIE 2005 when 4chan stopped using rented server space and bought their own servers, requiring a dedicated sysadmin to do maintenance on-site. First colocated in Houston, Texas in early 2006, they were moved to California in 2008, where they remain to this day, albeit the machines have changed and the rack grown larger.

Current

• Mr. VacBob (MVB) (Alexander Strange)

MVB joined team4chan in late 2004. One of his first developer duties was maintaining shiichan after Shii's departure. He also wrote the wrote some 4chan extensions. After DONATE OR DIE 2005, when 4chan purchased it's first physical servers, MVB offered to house them (and become the sysadmin), a role he fulfils to this day (n.b. no idea if MVB housed them when they were in texas). MVB became part of Raspberry Heaven, and took over Studio ADTRW, running it until it's closure in 2012. He attended the 4chan Panel of Otakon 2006. Never separated his online life from his public life, and freely linked his handles and his personal blog in all his sites.

• Kate

Mentioned in passing in a news post in 2012, as an aide of MVB.

Former

• 2003-2003 - hannibal

Sysadmin/founder of Raspberry Heaven. He taught moot how to run and set up a Linux server and was co-admin for a short time during 4chan's second iteration in October and November 2003. He left together with IchibanMuffin for an undisclosed reason, after the later forced moot out of their shared server space.

• 2003-2005 - DJ Lucid (Bill)

Offered to help 4chan with optimizations while they waited for thatdog to finish Futallaby in November 2003. He became the official co-admin from there on. While he did plenty of work, he became infamous for disappearing at random, and ultimately retired by late 2005, likely, a bit after the DONATE OR DIE physical servers were installed.

Managers

The manager position started informally around November 2003 as moot was experiencing problems handling the financial side of 4chan. Managers would handle advertising, sponsors, and anything related to banks. The Manager was considered a type of site administrator in the 4chan Bible V5. Managers were deprecated around 2007 or 2008, after moot became a legal adult and took charge of site finances. In addition, the pink palm tree, ## Manager, existed as a custom capcode in the /j/ board's code, a selectable capcode any mod could choose. It saw some informal use when senior mods wanted to put emphasis on particular subjects such as explaining policy to the Janitor corps.

Between late 2013 and 2014, the manager title resurfaced as the Janitor Manager, where multiple staff members organized to vet, accept, consult and promote new Janitors. At some point, the role was specialized into a full-time position carried by a single volunteer. With moot's retirement of 4chan in Jan 2015, the acting manager became part of the administrator triumvirate together with the lead developer and the sysadmin. With Hiroyuki's acquisition in Sep. 2015, the manager became one of the only two paid employees, and the de-facto policy-maker on the site. It's unknown if the manager has also reincluded the handling of payment processing and donations duties the original role possessed, presumably, this is currently carried out by the owner (Hiroyuki) or a third party working in his stead.

Current

• Since 2013 - RapeApe (RA)

Nicknames / Handles - RapeApe9k, GrapeApe, Narutomod.

Manager and acting Admin. Started out as an /r9k/ janitor either 2010 or 2011. Got promoted to mod between 2012 and 2013 and almost immediately became the dedicated janitor manager. In 2015, with the creation of 4chan Community Support, LLC. he became one of the only paid 4chan employee in 2015 with (n.b. unable to confirm, it seems it did not happen with 4chan, LLC. given some moot statements), and it was never known why he - of all team4chan - was chosen. In Jan. 2015, moot left and made him one of the three admins to manage the site on his stead. In Sep. 2015 Hiroyuki buys the site and RA became the de-facto site leadership. Albeit a latecomer, he's among the mods influenced by Invisibro's idea of returning to the public eye, and has managed a twitter with his mod handle since 2022.

One of RapeApe's first actions as a mod was causing Naruto Day, when /a/ posters crying about Naruto on /q/ accused him of actively protecting threads from "self-moderator" spammers. Anons to tried to dox him, earning him the faildox of a indian man named Patrap Davis. This managed to make moot angry, starting a dramafest that ended up with /a/ revenge-spamming CSAM. Moot then made this sticky addressing the witchhunt against him. His second claim to fame was banning GamerGate on a kneejerk reaction over the general thread unknowingly spamming reports, turning the movement against 4chan and starting a chain reaction that caused moot to leave 4chan and have years worth of #janiteam IRC logs leaked. He's been known to hang out in #420chan with the likes of Kirtaner and sparto. In 2020 and 2023, he was featured in news articles that interviewed ex-moderators who accused him of promoting radical conservative views on /pol/ by inaction, and journalists managed to retrieve invoices of him and desuwa's salaries. While commonly assumed to be /pol/lack, RapeApe has consistently shat on /pol/ in leaked IRC logs and his /r9k/ ramblings political leanings are public under his team4chan handle.

RapeApe's nationality has been a subject of debate on 4chan for years. Through various leaks, he's been known to have at least resided in Canada at some point between the 2000s and the 2010s, and has been involved with the army.

Former

• 2003-2004 - Censored Vagina (CV)

Manager of Studio ADTRW. Started out in October 2003 as board mod for /l/ and became the site's first manager as moot was having problems with PayPal. He was in charge of managing donations, advertising and acting as user rapport between November 2003 and June 2004. Convinced moot to restore /l/ - Lolicon when it got taken down, then jumped to not4chan to assist Saber in moderating the site. He was infamous in Something Awful for being a self-declared pedophile, fact that got him banned during a witch hunt in 2005. He retired from 4chan that year.

• 2004-2007 - Man of Wax (Simon Waxman)

Having been around RH before moot first came by, it's unknown exactly when he joined the staff, but he was officially the site's manager in the fourth revival (Aug. 2004), succeeding CV. MoW was occupied with handling donation money and informing the site how hard the servers were getting raped. He also ran the first official 4chan panel in AnimeUSA 2004, co-hosted the panel in AnimeUSA 2005, Otakon 2005 and Otakon 2006. By next year, MoW retired. Being the man in charge of finances, his full name was part of the donation instructions.

Developers

People who handle and modify site code, update libraries, and generally fix whatever dumb shit the latest browser update has broken. Many people have tackled the role both formally and informally, albeit a sequence of "main" developers can be discerned. With 4chan's sale in Sep. 2015, the lead developer position was formalized with a salary, and is likely the only active developer.

Before the implementation of a proper Admin Panel (somewhere in 2004 or 2005) and therefore, a more robust privilege system working the backend, all formal developers doubled as admins. In the 2010s they got their own capcode, ## Developer, albeit there's no one known to use it who didn't have de-facto admin privileges.

Current

• Since 2012 - desuwa (Maxime Youdine)

Acting lead developer, "JavaScript Wizard", creator of the Yotsuba Catalog, and a helping hand in the HTML5 reworks. He also added most features of the extensions into the main page and coded the 4chan API, and created an inline 4chan catalog. He was one of the admin triumvirate running 4chan in moot's stead between his Jan 2015 departure and the site's Sep. 2015 sale.

Former

• 2003-2003 - Hova

Hova helped moot translate the original GazouBBS script that became 4chan's imageboard code in September 2003.

• 2003-2003 - [NPH]

Founder of Studio ADTRW and (sort of) Raspberry Heaven. In October 2003 he offered to help moot with additional PHP coding, making the frontpage. He later helped moot with backend optimizations. He was named as a tentative developer in August 2004 revival, but that likely didn't happen.

• 2003-2003 - thatdog

Became a developer in 4chan's second iteration, late October. Helped optimizing the Futaba Database for 4chan usage, making the first version of YotsubaSQL, then set to make a thread archive and update Futaba Script into web 2.0 friendly Futallaby, testing the first forms of the script in the test board /r/ - TRAINZ. He later made 1chan to host the finished script. A falling out with moot (and between moot and other RH heavy hitters) caused him to abandon the archive project and discontinue maintaining the script between January 2004 and June 2004. In August 2004, the site returned online and he created the first Overchan, a link aggregator for imageboards.

• 2004-2005 - W.T. Snacks
• 2004-???? - Mr. VacBob
• 2005-2008 - Coda

Coda became the second PHP developer just a few weeks before Snacks was fired (so somewhere between June and July 2005), with 4chan.org/flash/ being among his first contributions. Very active during 2006, and he was a big promoter of Chiptune and Demoscene projects, even running a Demoscene panel at Otakon 2006. Retired around 2008, passing the flag to KFF. He was also an animator, making the intro swf videos for Otakon 2005, 2006 (which he attended), 2007 and AWA 2013.

• 2005-2006 - Foone

Foone developed the code for /rs/ and the /r9k/ Robot. He was talked by moot into trying to make a feature called 4meet that would let anons know if they were physically close, but he was fired from inactivity in 2006.

• ????-2014 - KING JAFFE JOFFER

It's unknown exactly when KFF joined team4chan, possibly around 2008 as lead developer after Coda retired. He translated the official 4chan Firefox extension to Google Chrome. In 2012 he refracted the entirety of 4chan's HTML5 code moving 4chan away from Futallaby into Yotsuba Script, later remade admin toolkit and several minor changes until retiring in either 2013 or 2014.

Moderators

The hammerman. Decides bans, range blocks, appeals, sets protected status on boards and threads being spammed, comforts jannies when they have to ban request a GR1. And he does it for free.

With the ## Moderator purple palm tree comes the privilege of being able to embed html and escape wordfilters, and presenting themselves as figures of authority on the site.

Current

• ALTERNATIVE

Nicknames / Handles: DAVE, buttly

Moderator since 2004. Suggested the creation of /tg/. Together with Zephro, the oldest acting mods.

• Invisibro (Jay Louis Irwin)

Nicknames / Handles: Swaglord, gingermod

Invisibro became a mod in early 2010. It's unknown if he was a janitor prior. From the get-go he was one of the more talkative moderators on #4chan and /g/. He came to prominence at the tail end of 2013 adopting the moniker Swaglord. He became [s4s]'s patron mod during the board's first years, coming up with the tradition of stickying meme threads and was known to post in comic sans. (ref IOU) He's also famous for being a personal friend of moot and lobbying for letting mods become visible personalities, going against what was commonly believed to be site policy, and attempting to become a known "4chan figure". Wrote right leaning articles for observer.com directly referencing the site. Albeit his attempts at opening the staff to the site led to some moderators easing up on the Batman routine, it never became as common as he hoped.

Being one of the few mods who frequently capcode / name posts and a known shitposter, he developed a considerable hatefandom that stalked all his moderation decisions. As a result of this, he has been doxed endlessly.

GIVE ME SOURCES OF GET DELETED: He's been accused of shitting up /g/ with flamewar threads that violate the only rule on the board. Has a tendency to ban people on /a/ for "inane" posts. Usually moderates /tv/ and /g/.

Former

• 2003-2007 - Shut (John)

moot's right hand man. Shut was helping around since moot set 4chan up, but didn't become a formal staff member until November 2003. Shut advised moot on running 4chan, taught him HTML, designed the 4chan FavIcon and was the closest thing to a head moderator the site had, being actually referenced as one of the two "mod leaders" in the bible v5 draft. He co-hosted the AnimeUSA 2005, Otakon 2005 and Otakon 2006 4chan panels. According to moot in 2012, shut retired around 2007 and they remain friends, reuniting in AWA 2013 to co-host the 10th anniversary panel.

• 2003-???? - Spork

Owner of the original 4chan IRC, hosted on Terra & Sharkey's irc.pyoko.org. Best known for wearing the yotsuba TF2 mask at Otakon. - proofs of volunteer disclosure or delete (aka Dan Levin)

• 2004-2007 - Martin Random (Bernard Goldsmith)

Nicknames / Handles: Marmandy Jones

Martin Random was around RH when moot made 4chan. He joined the staff in 2004, likely during the August revival and possibly as Board Mod of /b/. A relatively popular SA poster known for his tall tales and creative posts, abilities he used in 4chan too. he was known to shitpost on /b/ around in 2006, pulling many stunts, embedding swfs, posing as "Marmandy Jones the secret financer of 4chan", reposting Something Awful posts where he pretended to be a 4chan big shot (and was banned in 2006). In 2007 he wrote the motto above /b/. Was a law student and thus served as the closest thing the site had to a lawyer.

According to an emotional breakdown MR suffered in 2023, he left in 2008 due to Chanology to further his law career, but it's likely he left around 2007. During this breakdown, he claimed to be 4chan's secret co-founder together with shut, coda, and MVB, accused a "former server admin" of being a pedophile, stated the secret founders "gave the site to moot" as a scapegoat to avoid legal responsibility, posted old emails from moot inviting him to AWA 2013 and others, then accused Anonymous-San of having child pornography when he confronted him over posting private correspondence.

• 2005-2006 - Foone
• 2005-2006 - Okk (Brian Raddatz)

Started off as a drawfag in 2005, made some early 4chan's comics and flash animations that got made official by moot. Joined #4chan and became a mod. Quit somewhere around 2006 or 2007 and became a regular at /i/.

Janitors

Janitors are the main corps of team 4chan, and despite some mod's insistence that janitors are "not team 4chan" (many years ago ref IOU), they are backbone on which the site supports itself since the early 2010s. Janitors are have a purely mechanical role: They clear the report queue and kick the serious problems "up the chain" to be handled by mods. In order to do this, they are armed with two tools: Post deletions and Ban Requests.

Janitors cannot use their judgement to decide if a post is deletion-worthy, they can only react to a reported post and act according to the letter of the rules or clear the report if found non-offending. Any deviation from this role is typically punished with dismissal, but there's been historic janitors who side-stepped these requirements and leeyway is very much on a case-by-case basis.

Contrary to popular belief, janitors do haveHAD their own nifty ## Janitor capcode, but they may only use it in /j/, a board with a custom script called broomcloset.php. Janitors, historically, had a very high turnout rate, which has come hand by hand of accusations of abuse and bad practices in the mods part.

#4chan Support

Also known as #4chan Customer Service ^{It WAS customer service suck it mods}

"Moderators are available to assist users with bans and technical issues on the website." - 4chan FAQ

"Assisting users" was an informal role that grew out of moderators becoming regulars at the #4chan IRC channel. Between the late 00s and early 20s, a rotating cast of mods volunteered to help people with questions about bans, quick appeals on short bans, calls to action on major problems (i.e. spammers) and more. Only Moderators and up could fill the role, with janitors not being allowed to show themselves. Between February and March 2017, the role was formalized in the rules, FAQ, and ban pages (even encouraged), but limited in scope to asking for information or appealing bans.

They are, famously, the largest source of hate towards 4chan staff, with several hundred snippets and screenshots of open verbal abuse accumulated over years.

In time, the service was obfuscated as relations with staff soured until it was mostly discontinued by the first years of 2020. First, "public" reporting became bannable around March 2017 (n.b. albeit it was not always enforced), then reporting to mods in private started being heavily discouraged by 2020 until formally banned around 2021 or 2022 (with some such as Fission dissenting). Appealing short bans, while technically allowed, was also discouraged.

Mods known to have engaged chat support

Note: Don't be surprised if the majority of 4chan's most discussed mods are also IRC regulars

• (+o) Alternative, more (IOU)
• (+h) I_AM_ABIB, yournamehere, fission, cygnus, more (IOU)

Ranks according to #4chan position

+q (Owner) - Admin/Rizon Operator 
+o (Operator) – (Presumed) Senior Moderator 
+h (Half-Operator) – Moderator

It should be noted that +v (voice) was given to channel regulars so conversation was not interrupted when someone was spamming the chat.

Informal Roles

Senior Moderators

An informal position for moderators with access to special moderation tools and presumably, a first among equals type of authority. Their existence was confirmed in leaks during the early 2010s. (ref IOU)

Only a few staff members have been known to have extra powers, albeit a couple of #4chan IRC idlers have been assumed to be Seniors from the rank difference with other moderators.

Moderators having additional privileges on top of the extended tools have been a subject of speculation, usually focused on posting rights such as embedding HTML or using with the moderator capcode. It has been implied to happen by off-hand mentions in a couple statements by former staff members (ref IOU, asan said something along this lines)

• Invisibro
• ALTERNATIVE
• More (IOU)

Global Janitors

A role that had little information released and very few handles associated with it. The role is confirmed to exist since the April 2025 leaks as a special role found within the site's code.

Global Janitor is not a promotion and they don't posses have higher rank than other janitors. Rather janitors may be given rights to moderate other boards by circumstance, and exceptional circumstances have resulted in janitors moderating all boards, but otherwise, they remain common janitors.

Extension & Code Contributors

An informal subset of developer. Many fans and team4chan members voluntarily offered scripts, browser extensions and even contributions to mod and admin toolkits without being formally considered developers. Early on, offering free code to 4chan was also an easy way to become a mod. Between the 2000s and the 2010s, they represented sizeable percentage of site codebase.

• Shingo

Helped translate the rules into Japanese Katakana in October 2003.

• ichibanMuffin

Co-founder of Raspberry Heaven. He offered sharing a server with moot in October 2003, but a falling out for unknown reasons cut that short in November 2003.

• mangoat

In November 2003, Helped moot prepare a server for install after IchibanMuffin cut their partnership short.

• niralisse

In November 2003, helped moot with setting up his own dedicated server, after IchibanMuffin cut their partnership short, and helped moot set up a webmail.

• Scuzzy

Wrote the first anti-leech code in November 2003.

• Shut

Fixed a bug that allowed huge files on the site if they were .btm.

• More (IOU)

Former Roles

Board Moderator

The very first moderator role. Came right out of the box with the software stack used to run 4chan. moot tried to have at least one mod for every board, and some managed to have two. By the end of 2003, at least a dozen if not two dozen volunteers were filling the role. Almost all of them lifted straight from Raspberry Heaven ranks, with a minority from non-RH ADTRW regulars and later on #4chan regulars. With the August 2004 revival, Board Mods were forbidden from banning, but it's unknown if this was ever enforced.

Board Moderators were deprecated in 2005, with every board mod becoming global. By the end of the year their original niche was replaced with the ban-uncapable Janitor. Presumably, all Boards Mods still active became Mods.

Known Board Mods

• 2003-???? - /d/ - Hentai/Alternative - Shingo

Officially the first 4chan mod, named in October 6 2003 to moderate the newly made /d/. Contributed the Japanese greetings page.

• 2003-2004 - /c/ - Anime/Cute - Marshall Banana

Second 4chan mod, named in October 6 2003 to moderate the newly made /c/. At some point, he was replaced by MrSpooky. He was banned from Something Awful around 2005.

• 2003-???? - /y/ - Yaoi - BadLuck

Mod N. 3, given control of /y/ on October 6 2003 because moot did not want to touch the board. He's mentioned in the 4chan v5 bible as a potential board leader, it can be assumed he was still part of staff by 2004.

• 2003-???? - /g/ - Guro - Portable951 (Port)
• 2003-2005 - /l/ - Lolikon - Censored_Vagina
• 2003-???? - /s/ - Sexy Beautiful Women - Boco_T
• 2003-???? - /s/ - Sexy Beautiful Women - PotatoSan

Draft list of Board Mods according to the 4chan v5 Bible, 2nd Revision 2004 Aug. 11.

• 2004-2005 - /l/ - Lolikon - Saber
• 2004-2005 - /h/ - Hentai - moot (lol)

Board Leader

A position mentioned in 4chan Bible V5, the design document for 4chan's August 2004 revival.

Seemingly, a senior role pre-empting potential speeding up of 4chan and therefore growth in staff, board leaders where the people who managed board mods. They also decided on banning problem users (board mods could ban, but where discouraged from doing so) and made on-the-spot decisions on site policy.

It's not actually known if board leaders were ever implemented, but it is likely that if they were, they lasted only a few months and all board leaders eventually became Moderators between Aug. 2004 and early 2005.

Draft list of Board Leaders according to the 4chan v5 Bible, 2nd Revision 2004 Aug. 11.

• /a/ - Anime - Seem
• /b/ - Random - Spork
• /c/ - Anime/Cute - MrSpooky
• /cm/ - Cute/Male - Favor
• /d/ - Hentai/Alternative - Shingo
• /g/ - Guro - Portable951 (Port)
• /h/ - Hentai - Zanok
• /l/ - Lolikon - Censored_Vagina
• /p/ - Photo - W.T. Snacks
• /t/ - Torrents - Man Of Wax
• /u/ - Yuri - Roobar
• /w/ - Anime/Wallpapers - Jeff Fury
• /y/ - Yaoi - Bad Luck

Moderator Leader

A position mentioned in 4chan Bible V5, the reference document for 4chan's August 2004 revival.

Proposed as the actual heads of moderation who responded only to moot. The ML was in essence, a global BL and thought as a mediator for disagreements between mods and BLs.

It's not actually known if mod leaders were ever implemented.

Draft list of Mod Leaders according to the 4chan v5 Bible, 2nd Revision 2004 Aug. 11.

• img.4chan - Archo
• zip.4chan - Shut

External Roles

Not part of Team 4chan, but linked to 4chan through work relationships (e.g. hired) or a strong personal bond.

Legal Representation

Informally, moot's lawyers. Risk of lawsuit (and therefore legal consulting) was presumably first considered in the late 2000s as people used /b/ to post bomb threats, leak politician emails and start shady harassment campaigns. While moot has stated to have been interviewed by US Law Enforcement agencies since the NFL bomb threat, the first public court case 4chan was involved in 2010 when moot was cited for a court hearing involving David Kernell's hacking of Sarah Palin's email, but no known lawyer was associated with it. The first known counsel hired was Martin Schwimmer (then of Leason Ellis, LLP.) in an intimidation letter against venture company moot.it for the use of moot's nickname.

Formally, with the creation of 4chan, LLC., 4chan developed a relationship with a juridical study or two, albeit it's never been disclosed which or how many. For the first years, Leason Ellis and Schwimmer continued to represent moot and 4chan, and were responsible for filing the 4chan trademark in 2013. In 2014 they represented 4chan in a WIPO dispute over 4chan.com that was denied.

The first known lawsuit involving 4chan occurred over the 2022 Buffalo shooting, consolidated as Patterson Vs. Meta Platforms, Inc. with Harris Beach, PLLC firm representing 4chan. The cases were dismissed in July 25, 2025.

On August 2025, with the advent of the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act, a tax-grab slash mass-censorship law that set nearly impossible compliance standards in order to serve websites to the UK, 4chan accepted the offer of Byrne & Storm, PC and Coleman Law Firm, PC to represent them pro bono in a federal lawsuit against the UK's Office of Communications.

Sponsors & Advertisers

4chan traditionally uses self-serve ads, with other forms of advertising having come and gone over time, until the system ossified with specialized companies hired and curated by Hiroyuki. In-between the self-serve and ad services, unique partnerships have been known to surface.

• Peter Payne (aka moot's friend from Japan)

Owner of the J-list; has been in an on-and-off advertising relationship with 4chan from the beginning. Peter Payne has been in correspondence with moot since he was a teenager, and had expressed interest in 4chan as a platform since it's first months, which developed into a nearly permanent business relationship starting 2005. Payne was by far and wide the longest running advertiser on 4chan, well past the point one would consider it financially sound. After moot's departure, the J-List continued being advertised until 2017 when Payne decided to end the relationship. (ref: IOU)

• More (IOU)

Supporters

4chan has long standing friendships with a number of people, mostly, illustrators known to be friends of moot and the staff.

• Dan Kim
• more (IOU)

Other

BUTTS

To Do

• I_AM_ABIB (aka BLOODMOUTH_CARNIST) - cj - Previously Janitor, he got promoted to mod during '09. Posts on /a/ from time to time, but spends most of his moderation duties on /v/. He has got in a few controversy's, one of the main ones was his deleting of lobcorp threads from /v/ because he considered them to be generals. When someone argued that smash threads that were similar weren't being deleted, he justified it because smash brothers was a "cultural phenomenon". Another tussle he has got into with /v/ was when anons completed a parody of Goodbye Volcano High called "snoot game" before the game is even released, just so they could showcase it for /v/3. The game quickly grows popular on /v/, and then the mods start deleting all threads about it. Someone confronts them about this on 4chan's IRC and receives unsatisfying answers from ABIB. The board gets angry and snoot game threads devolve into mockery of jannies, but mostly about him. Strong dislike for furries and lolicons. Also a IRC rat.

• yournamehere -Moderator, known for being pretty unforgiving to people in the 4chan IRC. One of the first people to also go against GamerGate threads in 2014. Was mentioned in a news article where he joked about and seemed suspiciously indifferent with mass shooters coming from 4chan. Possibly the biggest IRC rat of them all, he's on there almost 24/7. Has a short temper.

• fission -/g/ centric Moderator. Ignores the only rule on /g/ being no flamewars. Only comes to /g/ to ban people when people get sick of shitty flamewar threads and start flooding Jay's dox. IRC rat.

• Troid - /a/ centric moderator. Was originally assigned in maintaining the 4chan archives but later had his archive privileges removed after going on a mass deletion spree whilst trying to cover up information about himself that was stored within the archives, despite such he retained his mod rights.

• kami` - /a/-centric mod, colloquially known as Kinomod among the userbase due to posting Kino no Tabi. Formed a close relationship with /a/ due to taking care of pests like Accelspammer. Posts similarly to Jeremy. IRC rat.

• Pixel (aka will) - otakon helper.

• Pixel Hotness – Originally a tripfag from /b/.

• Aerolite – Mod. IRC Rat.

• Zephro – Extremely old guard mod since 2005.

• BEAM – Theorized to have gotten NeoGaf discussions banned form /v/ for a short while in 2017.

• DOTDOTDOT- Moderator and former janitor of /h/. IRC rat.

• grubermeister (aka gnubermeister, deadlierbender) - Michael Connolly -Moderator and former janitor. /co/, /tg/, /v/ and most likely /g/ centric. Owns a cloud solutions consultancy start up. Twitter Shitposter, programmer, possibly a fan of the v-tuber "Pipkin Pippa" based on him liking a handful of tweets associated with her.

• admiraltunafish-Moderator. IRC rat.

• cygnus- /a/-centric Moderator. Has a postive reputation of being forgiving and kind to people in the 4chan IRC.

Generic Mods (No quality worth mentioning or almost nothing is known about them):

| Halcyon | Walleye | astria | nana_ | jeeh | Ghost | Faust | AnimeDad (aka Spitch) | Purple Pie | Doremy | e7711 | errorname457 | kdel | Aeolian | ChibaKuang | Vertigo | Aero | Islands | kinoko | soups | falalal | Lanboss | DotMatrix | Betamax | chinese | Katsurugisan | rain | Hunter | 4Royals | Aeolian | Hydlide |

Janitors

A list of janitors names that have been leaked through screenshots or other means.

Important note: A lot of these names are really old, so most likely a lot of these guys are not involved in 4chan anymore.

Per board

• /co/ - RubDoctor

• /v/ - fun

• /a/ - Mikage Most likely has become a mod or has left by now.

• /h/ - Mr.Bucketman

• /int/ - FnFy – Was the one to be contacted by a 8ch.net admin in regards to the upcoming 4chan leaks. Most likely has become a mod or has left by now.

• /x/ - Kynokephalos | kephra Most likely has become a mod or has left by now.

Generic janitors (no known assigned board):

• Cephei – Janitor. Was upset when he was told he had to sign the agreement. It is unknown if he quit.

| Hobbes | casval | CarlitoGo! | rhine | metsu | Chill | klassicjelly | Praketh | Greenman | fellsmere | Gary Oak | bismuth_fishing_lore | SevenEight | lewdchan | m0thman | Jeepers88 | Aliens | BrainSledge | JamesIha | Praesens | Nouz | theomeo | UltraHoss | TheBurnWard | cdnexplorer | Inf | Axism | Bloom | relare | Cryswar | cetpargust | gfairy | akkerzaigts | Arbogast | JustPX | LzK | saku | Nikki (aka Nikkia / Nikka) | MBSL300 | Meadowlark | RocketDrillKick | Arsarkinum | You`reDadsA | MoistNugget | Drae | AZ4 | Caelum | anon-kun | scroton | morobrens | raikoo | badsled | Enamourd | SenatorBufordFunkmuscle | ThinMint | ashpain | badsled | andmoreagain | Sir_Spice | Acidflashback | Thesmothete | trout-senpai | novatoad |Kobayashi| Astroturf | Starfrog| HeavyGear | Axism |

Former

• Anonymous-san - asan - Josh (Popularly known as modcat) - #rasberryheaven, goon – Mod since pretty much the beginnings on 4chan, who supposedly quit around April 25, 2012 because he was trying to contact a girl in his circle of friends (Which happens to include moot), or a girl from /soc/ (sources vary a lot), and asked for advice on /soc/. He then used the warn function to give his contact info to female posters who were helping, but one flipped her shit out fear of being banned, and another ratted him out with moot who fired him. Some say he asked to have his powers revoked and moot complied. Others say he later asked him to have his mod status back, but moot is the hero 4chan deserves but not the one it needs and denied it. moot later confirmed he resigned during a Q&A on /pol/. He later regained his mod status circa 2017, only to lose it yet again when submitting a politically-charged warning regarding Right Wing Safety Squad threads.

• 5 - Had his own secret board dedicated to pictures of him, created by WTSnacks as an in-joke. A few months after Snacks got demodded he stickied a Midnight Snacks thread, which he co-hosted at the time. The thread was unstickied by moot, and then re-stickied. Because of this people believed a mod war was raging and shouted the meme BRING BACK SNACKS. Jokingly, both users called the show "Radio free 4chan" for the night. This and a streak of inactivity cost 5 his mod status. moot later claimed it was a demoddable offense to sticky radio show threads.

• Dongfix (aka Enumeric) - Imgbear.com - Coder, he has written many scripts for the mods and janitors. IRC rat. Resigned on 2013.

• Xennon – Flash coder. Admin for one day because of a GET. Supposedly leaked the logs where Snacks was fired by moot.

• Soviet_Russia (aka SoRu) - 4chan Mod and famous tripfag. Made mod in the legendary board /z/ and attention-whored it to death alongside his brother Dash_Billions. He was eventually banned.

• Allyson – Underage b& mod from circa 2006. She was kind of a drama whore.

• Lec

• Kusanagi (aka KusKus / brbgone2gensokyo / fsdfdsf) – A famous /a/ mod. He was known by everyone for extremely favoring and encouraging /a/ board culture. He was also known for having blunt political opinions on IRC. On December 22, 2014 he got into a fight with yetsturdy on #janiteam and both were fired by moot. The change of mods in /a/ was noticed immediately and let to small wave of shitposting.

• yetsturdy (AKA thisisacleverpassword) – /a/ and /mlp/ Janitor. Got into a fight with Kusanagi and got fired on December 22, 2014

• Redwood (AKA Henchouse) – Mod, famous /co/ tripfag for years as "Inspector Redwood", who ultimately got ousted during the 2014 aussie leaks and had to stop using the trip. He used to publicly ban people who called others "nigger". He later returned to tripping and allegedly left the moderation position. Was forced to change his mod handle after being outed (to "Henchouse"). Allegedly resigned after sometime after being outed.

• JDigital - JohnnyDigital - http://www.jonnydigital.com/

• FrankStallone (AKA dr.wiii) – Mod that retired during early 2010.

• Alan – Mod.

• DocEvil – A mod, originally a janitor from /tv/.

• Mr.Spooky - Ex-mod who spawned the catchphrases "I've never seen so many ingrates" and "You'll receive nothing from me." after a rant regarding donations. He frequently made stickies on /b/ begging for money because he got thrown in jail and needed donations to pay off his court fees.

• rabidkimba

• magz

• DamageInc – Coded the original 4chan Firefox extension around 2004

• Jibaku – Mod circa 4chan's revival (2005).

• Ezzi – Active around 2004.

• Majnen – Made an unauthorized news post about donations on July 1st, 2005 telling that moot left the project and 4chan would cease operations, followed the closure of a number of boards. He was probably sodomized by moot after that.

• Souldark – Active around 2004. Scottish.

• LordVorbis – Active around 2004.

• Otaku – Active around 2004. Sysadmin? In charge of donations?

• Burnt Sulphur (aka ponyfaggot) - Moderated /mlp/ since Friendship is Magic's debut in 2010. Regularly baited pedophiles and acted as an anti-pedophilic vigilante in the /mlp/. Frequently argued with other janitors and thus earned the reputation as the "Dr. House of 4chan." Resigned in 2017 after her wife, (name omitted at the request of Burnt Sulphur) and her daughter were killed, citing alcohol addiction as the reason she retired. Generally showed strength of character even at the cost of herself, even if she was kind of a dick. Loved, and missed, by /mlp/, /k/, /3/, /a/ and /w/.

• Mangoat – Server Admin circa 2003.

• BigN (name unconfirmed) – Outed by /a/ for not apparent reason during the Aussie Hack 2014. Might or might have not been fired

• Saegrimr – Outed by /jp/ during the Aussie Hack 2014. Might or might not have been fired. Is still an internet janny in videogames (TGstation)

• Kazisho - Outed by /jp/ during the Aussie Hack 2014. German gay brony. Had a tumblr account with pictures of little boys on it.

• Nemo – Janitor. Outed himself on /b/, fired by moot.

• Shiren | Nikka | Zenith (Nuked /jp/) | AoC (Dejannied several times for deleting all threads on /jp/ and similar stunts, repeatedly rejannied for being the only janitor willing to delete spam 24/7) | Duade (co) – Janitors that either left or were fired.

• andonuts – Janitor who leaked the #janiteam IRC logs. Associated with 8chan.

• Solomon - Former janitor of /g/. Got fired by RapeApe because one day he went on a deleting spree and deleted 3 pages worth of threads in a short period of time. He even got a mod postmade about him. The day after he made a thread on 8chan where he leaked minor stuff and mostly just talked shit about the staff team.

Unknown, mentioned and associated people

• Plesk

• NICH - A animator from singapore who made some of the old 4chan animations

• Outernet – Old 4chan personality. Forced the DIAL Soap meme via bot spam.

• Mayhem – Coded the 4chan X extension. He runs swfchan.org, /f/'s archive.

• Hox – Translator

• Anamanaguchi – Chiptune-Indie Rock band, mutual friends of Snacks and moot. Got their second album advertised by moot, and got him to dress as a furry and make a cameo in one of their music videos. Also known for having one of the most disastrous Q&A's (and probably last) in 4chan history. Has a verified capcode.

• Tattun - A spokesperson for the anime studio Trigger who posts on /a/ in related threads. Has a Verified capcode.