Category talk:English 4chan slang

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By definition, if it were 4chan slang, it would be inherently uncitable. This seems like mixing up part of speech and etymology, and we really shouldn't do that. -- Liliana • 02:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Obviously not true. 4channers have historically used Usenet (especially to troll alt.religion.scientology) and a couple books and magazine articles have been written about their culture, resulting in most of their lexicon being just barely citable. I have no idea how you seem to think that this is either part of speech or etymology, as it transcends both of those. It's about in-group terms that see heavy use on 4chan. Keep (as creator). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Many of the terms there may have originated as 4chan slang, but have since spread far beyond 4chan. It would be misleading to still consider them "4chan slang". It would be better to call it "slang originating on 4chan" or something. --WikiTiki89 03:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you think it should be moved under Category:English etymologies? (Which, by the way, has a rather bad name!) —CodeCat 03:24, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess so, but only if both are renamed. --WikiTiki89 03:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Keep. Like Wikitiki89 pointed out, terms that originate on 4chan and other online communities can enter broader usage (consider rickroll), and once they do, they may become citable. And the fact that these terms originated on 4chan can usually be verified by independent sources, because there've been books and articles written about the site, as Meta pointed out. I think it's useful from an etymological standpoint to categorize entries based on common origin, even if the shared origin is an online community, not a language. We have things like Category:Simpsons derivations or Category:Star Trek derivations. Though a rename to something along the lines of Wikitiki89's suggestion might not hurt, given some of the points raised above. Astral (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't doubt that a better name for the category could be found. That said, these are not necessarily terms whose first use was on 4chan, and I think verifying that is inherently impossible. Some had noticeable use before 4chan, like fap, but have become the predominant term there despite the existence of various other synonymous slang terms. I think there is value in keeping these terms together, however. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

We don't currently have a good naming scheme for terms derived from anything that is not a language. We still use the old naming for them, like Category:en:Fictional derivations. We should probably change that...? —CodeCat 17:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Kept, although the name may need to be reexamined. —CodeCat 12:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

/r/obot is incorrect

Nobody on /r9k/ would refer to themselves as a /r/obot, because the slashes refer to the specific board you are browsing - /r/ is the nsfw requests board, not /r9k/. Correct spelling is just "robot", which is the most common way a user of /r9k/ would refer to themselves or other users of the board.

Additionally, "/b/ros" is a very common way to refer to 4chan users in general, but especially /b/ users back in 2007 - 2016, this usage has decayed over time as /b/ lost it's core userbase. see https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/b - "The board's users are commonly referred to as /b/tards and /b/ros." 72.220.140.218 09:20, 18 July 2023 (UTC)