Forum Classification Project
Forum Classification Project
Hey, we're already rating browsers, mail providers, addons...so why not forums?
After all, since most of the discussion has moved to giant corpo platforms such
as Twitter and Facebook, it is particularly important to find a way to separate
yourself from those. The most important criterion will be what is required to
register and post. Why is recaptcha so penalized? Simply, it is heavily
exploitative - pretty much making you into a dog performing tricks for its
master ("Hey Spike, show me the fire hydrants! Good boy...now the crosswalks!").
And if you screw up, it's back to the drawing board, you bad doggie you. You
have no idea when the reward (being allowed to register) is coming either -
maybe your master will be forgiving and force you to perform only three tricks
this time? Low tier is the best rating a forum with recaptcha can get.
Why is blocking anonymizers penalized even more? Because it makes connecting
everything you do on the forum to your real identity that much easier. You know,
these days people even get
arrested
for comments that the rulers didn't like - and with a VPN, they could have
avoided it. Therefore, if the admins include that "feature", it pretty much
means they're supporting this Technological
slavery system.
Any forum that has forced deanonymization will not get a rating higher than Very
low - leaving space for Shit if it has other flaws.
Other criteria taken into account are privacy issues other than anonymization
acceptance (such as asking for your real name), quality of moderation
(penalizing arbitrary censorship / micromanagement of your posts), amount of
activity, quality of discussion, JavaScript dependence, and anything else that
comes to mind. But even if a forum scores well in the above categories, it won't
reach Mid tier as long as it exploits people with anonymizer blocking or
recaptcha. Anonymization was tested with SigaVPN or RiseUp - more popular VPNs
and / or TOR might still be blocked; if you encounter that - e-mail me so I can
modify the ratings. If you have any additional data for any forum listed here
(or a new one), e-mail me as well so I can add it.
General forums
Nanochan
UPDATE June 2022: now alive again. UPDATE December 2021: now has rules
about muh racism and sexism, deleted the /pol/ board, in a meta thread mentions
planning to ban antivax discussion specifically. It might seem that it's trying
to avoid becoming a political swamp (like many other forums), but in reality it
becomes politically charged, NWO-supporting cesspool by banning specifically
antivax content. It could still be useful for tech discussion though (however,
the quality recently decreased, they even refused to discuss vulnerability
discovery). Also, some nanons have whined that I'm "sending redditors" to their
site (btw that's stupid, reddit hates me and doesn't come here), so I'm removing
the link. Find it on your own if you care. Not available on the clearnet; has
simple, unbloated design with zero JS requirement. Certainly can't get the
highest rating anymore with the recent changes, but again, the tech discussion
can still be okay. Also low activity; it's sad that a forum so flawed can get a
good rating, but there's nothing better. High tier.
Zzzchan
This is really similar to 8chan now, even with similar activity levels. Does not
require bullshit to post, I was even able to avoid enabling JS and cookies. Use
since the regular address is still behind Cloudflare (UPDATE February 2025:
not anymore). Overall I think the 8chan administration is better, so I'm giving
this only the High tier.
8chan (se / moe)
UPDATE 2025: onion dead? Also, can't manage to even read it at all, even on
the clearnet addresses. After pretending to agree to their mockery of a ToS
("look at the good boys we are, following the law! please let us exist,
government!"), the site says this:
Welcome to 8chan!
Thank you for agreeing to the site's rules. If this page does not redirect
you, use your browser's BACK button.
Of course, not only it doesn't redirect, but the mighty back button fails too
and exposes me to their shitty ToS once again, in a perpetual cycle of pain.
I've already noticed this problem a year ago or so, but dismissed it as
temporary, or I just didn't care about forums that much (since I've realized
they all suck). I also thought the issue might be specific to Pale Moon or my
unique addon configuration; maybe it doesn't like some VPNs, etc. But now I
realize it doesn't matter, and my readers deserve the expose regardless. After
all, you should be able to enter with any addon config, any VPN, any browser.
And, if you can't, then you should at least be told what it is that made it so.
If the site works only in "modern" browsers, then it's worthless to me. And of
course, the law cuckery is absolutely cringe; if the extreme leftists at raddle
can manage to resist it, the macho right wing free speech lovers at the chans
should be able to, as well. But no, they can't wait to wave their legal cuck
dicks in front of everyone, advertising complete submission to the forces of
evil. From embrace infamy of the old 8chan to...whatever this is. Regardless,
just for the block they deserve the exclusive rating of Shit tier.
UPDATE 25 October 2022: so, the block bypass is now needed to read or see
images at all (at least over the
onion) -
meaning you can't simply link stuff freely from there. At least you can now
solve the bypass without enabling JS or using a separate program; it lasts a
week per solution. Of course, the clearnet domain shouldn't be used, as it is
Cloudflared. Captcha required per post - what a joke; but at least it's easy
to solve. Still allows posting without JS and has high quality discussions -
though the boards other than /v/ are inactive. ~~High tier due to the new
changes~~ irrelevant now.
8kun (formerly 8chan)
This used to be a great imageboard I've loved posting on. Unfortunately, they
recently have been framed into allegedly having a killer post on their
boards (when in reality he posted his manifesto on Instagram and it was simply
reposted by someone else). Their CDN (the evil CloudFlare -
MozArchive) then took it
down because of an alleged harm caused by 8chan (despite hosting actual crimin
als -
MozArchive). I wanted to
wait this whole situation out, thinking they will just get a new CDN within a
few days (the admin posted an encouraging message on his twitter We are using
the downtime now to scale 8chan's servers, networking, and software to be
stronger for when we come back online) but it hasn't happened and likely won't -
and that's because 8chan is voluntarily down until Jim attends a congressional
hearing. The date is September 5th. He will have to explain the situation with
the alleged shooters posting on 8chan and probably be probed with a million
other questions. This used to be a top tier board that will now likely die
(or become government-controlled) because the psychopaths in charge hated
actual free speech and decided to bury it. The users have scattered around in
many different places that are not quite the same. We're losing the
internet, and fast.
UPDATE: I was right. 8chan got rebranded as 8kun and is a
shadow of what it was before. Here's a list of the issues with it:
It uses VanwaTech - similar to 8chan's CloudFlare, but this time you can't
even see the site without enabling cookies AND JavaScript. UPDATE February
2020: cookies and JS not required anymore. However, visiting it without JS
enabled throws you an obnoxious redirect on every page - which might even
take 15 seconds to skip by itself. Posting also results in a 404 Not Found
error, but the post still goes through. So, after all these months, 8kun has
even more technical issues than before.
A disclaimer saying Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents
thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of
the 8kun administration appears after every post.
A 24-hour captcha is there (same as 8chan) but it's way harder to solve and
you also need to accept the TOS every fucking day before being able to post.
About the TOS - it forbids posting any kind of child photos, even if
they're not sexual.
Many boards have not been migrated, such as /pol/ (coincidence? don't think
so).
8kun has had (and still does) lots of technical issues since its appearance.
Images, TOR not working, posts not appearing, and the whole site had to switch
domains many times. Funny how they haven't been able to fix their shit for
months - so much that even Mark (the vch admin) who's been shilling for 8kun
has been forced to pack up and leave back to vch since 8kun was unusable.
Most importantly, the admins admitted 8kun will be able to freeze a board on
government demand. This is cold, hard proof that 8kun is now a honeypot
like I predicted it would be.
UPDATE June 2020: some of those issues might be wrong now, I don't check out
8kun anymore. I still don't recommend going there and I certainly don't trust
the administration. Also, if you're looking for activity, forget it - you'll
only find that on the /pnd/ board (which is /pol/ in all but name) and the
absolutely cancerous polish /vichan/ - /v/ has 0 PPH as of writing this, for
example. Very low tier.
Julay.world
Killed by CP spam, administration changes, and other drama - /v/ is gone, domain
has changed, the only semi-active board is the useless /cow/. Late April, it
was even announced that the site will be killed 3 months later, but then it
changed to a
(MozArchive). We don't know
how that's going to look like, and regardless - we now have other alternatives
for everything Julay had to offer. Let it die.
4chan
Same format as 8chan (but introduced persistent IDs five years ago,
nullifying the anonymous aspect at least on the /pol/ board). UPDATE February
2025: now has hcaptcha (basically recaptcha) instead of its own captcha (which
was a lot less violating) for every post. Paying for a 4chan pass can avoid the
captcha and give you access to a premium board (yawn). Blocks TOR, VPN and
proxies. Used to include malware
(MozArchive). Cannot do much
without JavaScript enabled - not even view the catalog. ~~Uses Google
Analytics.~~ Not anymore, which I guess means they have their own. 4chan is
Cuckflared. The only saving grace of this forum is the huge activity, but
the content totally sucks from the little I've forced myself to read. Shit
tier.
Reddit
Recaptcha required to register. Absolutely terrible privacy
policy (archive
)
(MozArchive) - pretty much a
datamining operation, like Mozilla
Firefox. For the first few days
you will have random delays preventing you from posting at all. Reddit censors
subreddits with alternative information
(MozArchive), such as the
(MozArchive). July update:
more banned subreddits. There's also shadowbanning going on - for example, my site is
taboo on r/privacy; any posts with the mention of it will not appear.
Also has literal bots moderating the boards (for example, deleting posts with
the word "VPN" in them and threatening their posters). New UI is shit but can be
changed; with the old UI, you can at least read the site with JavaScript
disabled, but still cannot post. However, Reddit - unlike 4chan - allows
posting through VPN. Downvote system makes it easy to bury posts that buckle
the trend, creating a culture of conformity. UPDATE: now they also ban
people for upvoting
(archive - MozArchive) the
posts they want to censor. Makes it even worse in terms of conformity, so it's
best to avoid it altogether at this point - despite the huge activity. July
2020 update: also, ads cannot be bypassed through sorting by "new" anymore
- and there are obnoxious ones all over. UPDATE August 2021:
NoNewNormal, the best source of corona information and discussion, has
recently been quarantined. You can still access it, but can't search through it
UPDATE: spez the cuck ended up banning NoNewNormal. Clearly, Reddshit -
as the other big tech devils such as Wikipedia, Google, Twitter and FB - is in
the business of promoting the evil corona restrictions and deleting everyone who
dares to question them. Just put it in its coffin already. Very low tier.
Raddle.me
Reddit alternative. Registration requires only an username and a password (plus
solving a simple text captcha). E-mail is optional if you want the option to
reset your password. Absolute zero third party requests. IP is stored for 7 days
but you can use a VPN and they provide an onion as well. Decently high activity
but can't compare to Reddit of course. Has downvote system as well but unlike
at Reddit, the posts are not automatically hidden. Warning: HEAVILY LEFTIST
and of the bad (SJW) type - it has a section with a description of Death to
whiteness, for crying out loud. Despite alleging to dislike accusing others of
malicious acts, they will jump on you like rabid dogs for posting an opinion
they don't like (though often in a roundabout way, since they are too weak to
confront you directly). They criticize reddit for banning leftist subs for "no
reason", but do the same to the users on their forum. If you're used to
independent thought, forget about it - Raddle is a total echo chamber. Logic is
scarce in any topic relating to feminism, sexism, homosexuality and all their
other favorite victimhood issues. They even have a bot going around censoring
certain
words
(MozArchive), which include
stupid, lame and dumb - but they themselves have no issue with calling someone a
piece of shit or telling him to fuck himself. I could go on...this might be
Raddle's only real flaw, but it's massive. That flaw, though, also allows you to
discuss stuff you rarely can elsewhere, like shoplifting or anti-capitalism.
But you can get most of the same in 8chan's leftypol board, with way saner
people. I way misjudged these guys at the beginning - this is a disgusting,
hypocritical, hateful bunch. In the end, I can't with good conscience give
Raddle anything higher than Low tier.
Saidit
Another Reddit alternative. I was kind of impressed with it - you can sign up
through TOR, without any personal data and only a text-based captcha. The
privacy policy and ToS are much better and big corpos like Tencent don't have
influence there unlike on Reddit. There's good content and censorship level is
low; I can't see any ads, either. All of that evaporated when I've noticed that
Saidit is behind Cloudflare. Unfortunately, Low tier.
Voat.co
UPDATE: dead since December 2020, won't be missed. July 2020 update: Yet
another reddit alternative alleging itself to be user-respecting - but it's
now cuckflared and for a long time too (according to an E-mail I've got). If
it was that way since the beginning, I'd just end the entry right here. But
since I've already had a writeup, let me just keep it. Privacy policy says this:
The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP)
addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp,
referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. This information is
used to analyze trends, administer the site and track user's movement
around the site.
And does not specify duration. Track user movement around the site is also a
significant issue. ~~However, it's a hundred times better than reddit~~ which
violates you in every way imaginable and more. No, I can't say that anymore
(though reddit is a massive violator) since Cuckflare is swiping everything.
JavaScript is required to submit messages. New users get one fucking post per
day, even on the second day. Activity is okay but much, much less than reddit.
And so, the forum is pretty useless. But at least it allows anonymizers and
doesn't ask for personal data. There's apparently no censorship either: our
policy is to not meddle and not censor content unless said content is illegal in
the United States. The one post per day thing kind of kills it though.
Cuckflare plus other flaws results in a rating of Very low tier.
Slashdot
Recaptcha and real name - no thanks. Also does not allow the deletion of your
account. Can be decent for reading though. Low tier.
Hacker News
UPDATE February 2020: Has ReCaptcha now, but allows bypassing it by
e-mailing the admin. Comments appear immediately. Gigantic activity - a
thread almost every minute. Despite HN's alleged focus on "quality posting",
90+% of the threads are big corpo tier trash. These assholes flag (censor) any
(MozArchive). Thanks for
the tens of thousands additional views :D. Changing to Low tier because fuck
you.
Linux forums
SalixOS
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. From the most user respecting to the least -
recaptcha AND mod approval for a forum with almost zero activity (lol). What can
I say? It still allows posting through the VPN? EDIT: actually, it used to
block the Snopyta VPN when it still existed - but some others, like Riseup,
somehow get through. Decent privacy policy...whatever, I'm so disappointed since
the distro is so good. Due to blocking anonymizers, recaptcha and mod approval
(on a dead forum no less) the rating is Very low tier.
Ubuntu Forums
Asks for your real name, recaptcha AFTER you've already bothered to activate
your e-mail, runs a datamining operation. Don't be fooled - this is a big corpo
forum with big corpo policies (slave-like code of conduct). Shit tier.
Fedora Forum
No captcha, VPN allowed for registration and posting. No mod approval -
immediate creation of posts and threads even for a new user. Fully usable
without JavaScript. Privacy policy is OK but pretty lacking (doesn't state the
duration for which your data is stored) - though at least there's no litany of
third-parties that will get your stuff, which I guess they would mention
otherwise. There's no personal data asked for either except maybe the country
which you can fake. Sounds great, right? Well check this out:
when you post a message, upload a file, or otherwise provide us with
material for display on the website, you are granting FedoraForum.org a
royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to:
1. Use, copy, sublicense, adapt, transmit, publicly perform or display any
such communication. 2. Sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to
exercise any of the foregoing rights granted with respect to the
communication.
And the cat's out of the bag! You give up ownership of anything you share on the
forum at all. And that, despite everything else, sends Fedora Forum to Mid
tier.
Arch Linux Forum
Captcha requires usage of Linux command line (lol). VPN allowed for registration
and posting. No mod approval for accounts or the first post. No JS required. No
third party requests. OK privacy policy. High activity. Elitist as fuck culture
with a very restrictive "code of conduct" (for example - politics, religion,
sports, rant threads are BANNED). As well as a bunch of other ways to
micromanage the way you post - covering everything from bumping old threads and
how to properly answer questions to image sizes and grammar. They even
"discourage" recommendation threads, lol. I have no idea, though, how all that
is enforced in practice. Check
here (update: now
requires logging in to view) to see the kinds of threads that get deleted.
Wanted to give High at the beginning since the technical stuff is so good, but
the people side (actual reason we come to a forum anyway) leaves a lot to be
desired. Mid tier.
Linux Questions; Linux.org; Linux Mint; Kali Linux; KDE forum
Recaptcha. Didn't research further so could have other issues. Low tier.
Other software / tech forums
Pale Moon forum
Solving HCaptcha is now required for registration (as of July 2020 or maybe
earlier - hope you're ready to perform tricks, Spike); VPN (but not TOR)
allowed. Does not accept disposable e-mail or cock.li. First post has to be
approved by the moderator. Decent privacy policy, but - In principle we store
data only for as long as is reasonably necessary/commonly practiced to operate
our sites and services. And this can mean anything. At least it doesn't share
your data with third parties. The regulars suffer from attitude problems, and
threads critizing them or their browser are randomly
closed (archive
)
(MozArchive) despite not
being inflammatory. The TOR-hating sucks, but you can still use a VPN and the
discussion quality ~~is fine enough~~ fell of a cliff recently thanks to
infighting, especially certain devs being confrontational for no reason. There's
still a lot of good content to find there if you dig deep and just limit
yourself to reading. But since forums are supposed to be participated in, the
rating is Low tier.
Bitcointalk; Torminatorr
Recaptcha; didn't research further - Low tier.
Cracking Paradox
Does not allow registration through VPN. Don't know anything more about it. Very
low tier.
Other forums
MensTennisForums
Recaptcha, cloudflare, COVID cuckery. Very low tier
Disroot forum
Registration requires a written justification, but that's much better than a
recaptcha. Unfortunately requires JavaScript for any kind of interaction. June
edit: new UI got totally fucked, what a joke - as if it wasn't terrible
enough in the first place. Very low activity, and what's there consists mostly
of reporting problems with the Disroot services. Allows VPN and has a great
privacy policy; doesn't make a single third-party request either. Still, with
activity so low as to be almost dead, I can only put it in ~~Mid tier~~ Low tier
due to the new shit UI.
Final Fantasy Shrine (DEAD) / Squid Board
Used to be a forum mostly for sharing video game soundtracks. Had an amazing
collection, but is now dead. Replacement forum is
https://www.squid-board.ru/>. Requires reCaptcha for registration, cannot even
browse without it. Haven't seen the content, so let's say Low tier.
Sportsbookreview; David Icke; Psience Quest
Recaptcha; didn't research further - Low tier.
Prison Planet
Admin account approval. Haven't been approved in a few days, assuming either the
VPN or the RiseUp E-mail was the cause. Very low tier.
Ray Peat Forum
UPDATE February 2024: ha ha ha, RPF has just killed itself in a spectatular
train wreck. The admin completely changed focus from Ray Peat's work to his made
up "low Vitamin A / low toxin diet" and has plastered it all over the place, so
much that you have to scroll down to see the actual forum. Those ideas are
completely contrary to what Ray Peat believed but yet his name is still being
attached to it, confusing newbies and possibly harming people. Yesterday you had
to agree to some cringe "contract" to even be able to read the site. Today,
that changed to this:
Guest viewing is limited
- You have a limited number of page views remaining
- 9 guest views remaining
- Register now to remove this limitation
No comment. Anonymizers are still banned. Registration requires a birth date,
location and solving hcaptcha. Please leave this unethical place if you're still
there. Shit tier.
SMW Central
Enforces a Cloudflare browser check that needs JavaScript and cookies to pass.
ReCaptcha required to sign up. Very low tier.
Phoenix Rising
I thought I finally found a forum that's relatively sane. Though it does require
enabling (first-party) JS to register, there is no TOR block or personal data
requirement, and only a simple captcha to solve. Confirmation through E-mail and
boom, you're done, right? Wrong. You're required to write a fucking
autobiography in the Introduce Yourself section of the forum, before being
allowed to post anywhere else - and if you try to make your first post
elsewhere, the forum software will redirect you. Holy shit, I just wanted to
help someone's medical issues and GTFO. I hope you're happy with all those
people in that thread missing information that could have saved their lives,
Phoenix Rising administration. I also found a few other places talking about
this specific issue, and they were all Cloudflared. Why is everything so fucked?
Low tier because, well, the registration process isn't that bad.
Summary
Everything fucking sucks. Use 8chan for vidya discussion, and I guess come
to XMPP for tech talk. The most active politics board seems to be on anon.cafe;
another one is on NeinChan. UPDATE May 2022: hell I just realized leftypol
exists,
and is pretty active. The webring (available on anon.cafe) also contains places
for discussion on other topics such as anime, movies or sports. As I am not very
interested in those, I'll leave the quality judgments to you. The paranormal
community (/x/) - one of my other big interests - unfortunately seems to have
disappeared completely (UPDATE: zchan has it but it's dead).