My next chapter

http://chrishateswriting.com/post/140641275808/my-next-chapter

by dorianm • 10 years ago

162 58 10 years ago

chrishateswriting.com

sharkjacobs• 10 years ago

I would be fascinated to know what kind of position he was hired for.

duskwuff• 10 years ago

New maintainer for Memegen?

(http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/inside-googles-internal-meme-...)

themoonbus3• 10 years ago

I'm interested to see if this is part of a movement by Google towards a different notion of community & identity than Facebook.

Moot has very different position than Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to identity online: http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/13/4chan-moot-christopher-poo...

tlrobinson• 10 years ago

Google also had a very different position than Moot until about a year and a half ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars

themoonbus3• 10 years ago

Absolutely, which is why it's an interesting hire.

Jerry23• 10 years ago

He backpeddaled from that position fairly quickly. Moot banned Tor use on 4chan, he banned VPN use, proxy use was banned, he added ban-tracking cookies, he added unique IDs, he aded country flags to many boards that didn't want them, etc.

He supported anonymity for publicity and did a lot on his site to dissuade its use. When he gave interviews on 4chan, he used to tell everyone that "4chan is not anonymous".

About the only thing that's left on 4chan that's "anonymous" is the default username: which is still "Anonymous".

You have more anonymity on HN with a throwaway account than you have on 4chan.

People also give him too much credit when it comes to community organizing as well. He got lucky with 4chan when he copied 2chan and catered it to english-speaking audience. When he tried to actually create something from scratch, both of his apps failed miserably.

Mithaldu2• 10 years ago

There's a difference between anonymity of a user to other users, and tools being used by the administration to track and deny bad actors.

Besides, i'm pretty sure HN can track people across accounts as well, and if it hasn't banned proxies yet, then only because they haven't been abused enough.

themoonbus3• 10 years ago

Interesting notes. Regardless, 4chan's stance on identity is still far from Google & Facebook's real name policies.

DanBC4• 10 years ago

He tried the Japanese concept of anonymity from 2 channel ...

> A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other. If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC@2ch

...and it was a disaster because pathological arseholes.

doomrobo• 10 years ago

This is covered in the article.

He’s working on a new community site called Canv.as, which actually integrates with Facebook Connect, although users can still post anonymously. Poole said the fact that “you know that we know” the user’s real identity, even if other users can’t see it, discourages people from indulging in the most obnoxious behavior.

This is perfectly in-line with the banning of VPNs and Tor.

ybrah2• 10 years ago

Everything moot does leaves a 4chan shitstorm in its wake.

tychuz• 10 years ago

Who is moot?

roadnottaken• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Poole

Raphmedia• 10 years ago

Founder of 4chan

kzhahou• 10 years ago

http://www.google.com

Give a man a search result, and you help him for a day. Teach a man to google, and you help him for a lifetime.

GuiA• 10 years ago

Everyone's gotta pay the bills. If you're thrifty, 4-5 years at a company like Google can get you .5-1 mil for your next venture (maybe more, maybe less, depending on your bonuses & promotions, how well the stock performs, etc.)

I wouldn't expect any meaningful new product or anything to come out of this - if I had to guess, he was probably hired as an IC. Don't expect him to become some sort of new figurehead at Google for anonymity or identity on the Internet.

Have fun Chris.

ocdtrekkie• 10 years ago

I suspect very few people will ever admit they took a job for the money. Even though its usually true.

One of my favorite comments was actually by James Spader about Stargate. You can find the direct quote online, but he basically said it was an awful script but he took the job for the money, and doesn't think there's any shame in that.

ForHackernews• 10 years ago

hired as an IC

Please expand uncommon abbreviations.

krisdol• 10 years ago

Seconding -- my guess is Independent Contractor?

osullivj• 10 years ago

Individual contributor, as opposed to team lead or manager.

accounthere• 10 years ago

Apparently going to be Product manager on Photos according to some Anonymous Googler.

fredfoobar426• 10 years ago

I'm really not sure how I feel about this. Moot created the biggest, most toxic garbage fire of an internet community, refused to take management of it, and walked away when it became too toxic for anyone to deal with. In a way, he's a perfect new hire for Google, but Google usually doesn't leave quite so much devastation in its wake.

JoshTriplett• 10 years ago

While it might be incredibly toxic at times, it's also the source of quite a lot of interesting Internet culture and movements, many positive works, and a ton of creativity. It's a microcosm of the worst and the best of what the Internet can pull off.

Don't dismiss it out of hand as exclusively negative.

fredfoobar426• 10 years ago

Time and time again, the hands-off moderation of anything on 4chan beyond child pornography has had knock on effects in the real world. GamerGate began life on 4chan, and is still making women's lives miserable. All you have to do is ask Allison Rapp, their latest victim. <http://kotaku.com/the-ugly-new-front-in-the-neverending-vide...

While moot did, eventually, push GamerGate discussion off 4chan, he took forever to do so, and walked away from the site not long after. By not taking a stance on harassment and abuse earlier on, however, he created conditions for such a culture to flourish on 4chan.

Is there interesting and positive stuff on 4chan? Almost certainly. Would it still exist had moot taken a stronger stance on dealing with toxic posters? I'll go out on a limb and say yes.

Laaw• 10 years ago

What devastation? 4chan is absolutely not a "toxic garbage fire of an internet community", and it's not even his concept or idea. He didn't "create" anything in that sense.

He also didn't, "walk away when it became too toxic for anyone to deal with." That sentence is literally too hard to parse, given what's publicly available information about Moot and 4chan.

fredfoobar426• 10 years ago

What devastation?

Does GamerGate mean anything to you? And that's just one example.

dang2• 10 years ago

Not cool. No personal attacks on HN, please.

chatmasta• 10 years ago

Is it a personal attack when directed at a public figure?

vdnkh• 10 years ago

How is this assessment any better than judging a physical community based on their loudest/most controversial members? The "4chan garbage fire" is a rude stereotype.

fredfoobar426• 10 years ago

If I'm in a physical community where the loudest, and most controversial members are making it a terrible experience for people inside and outside that community, and the leaders refuse to deal with it, I think a fair assessment is that the community is toxic.

c3534l2• 10 years ago

Moot has always appeared to me to be a very talented and bright person. I think it's a mistake to judge him by what some people will say on an anonymous image board. The influence of 4chan on internet culture cannot be ignored: everything from LOLCats to advice animals and countless internet slang terms. He's also had a very unique and unusual experience being in charge of a group of people who believe the internet should be controlled chaos. In my opinion, Moot is a lot like Mike Judge after he did Beavis and Butthead: it's too easy to dismiss him because what he created is a bit crass. But he's a smart and talented person who will most likely go on to build a reputation beyond his first big thing.

Jerry23• 10 years ago

The influence of 4chan on internet culture cannot be ignored: everything from LOLCats to advice animals and countless internet slang terms.

Moot is not community. You cannot credit him with the inventions that his community came up with. His site was the catalyst, of course, but how much credit should he personally get for it?

Maybe you could judge him by the success (or the lack of it) of DrawQuest and Canv.as.. the two projects that he spearheaded and got VC funding for.

theseatoms• 10 years ago

Sure. You can't credit him with 100% of 4chan's cultural impact. But his experience is extremely unique, and likely very valuable to Google.

c3534l2• 10 years ago

It's a fair point. I probably wouldn't invest in his next website, but I wouldn't mind having his experience at my company.

user8341116• 10 years ago

And 4chan itself is just a clone of a Japanese imageboard, 2ch.

rdl• 10 years ago

Wow, congratulations!

pinewurst• 10 years ago

Curious how he fits into the goals of "Googliness" for new hires.

My next chapter

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