>>713986
Pft. The porn wasn't frustrating but not too rampant. It was the ads for the anon pedophile talk site that were truly frustrating, since they popped up every other post some days.
Captcha resolved most of the botting problems, though. The mods came to the boards not long after that to start twisting arms.
When it first happened I remember how pissed everyone was and how a bunch of people didn't even believe it was happening. A lot of creative people got banned in some boards, and there was literally poetry about it. Like, no shit, people were writing metaphorical stories, poetry, and performing artwork in protest of the mods. They all got banned, of course, and eventually they gave up on returning because their unique art styles gave them away.
Other than ban the expressive users who sometimes would single-handedly make a board worth visiting, I don't know what all the mods and janitors have done for us. In the old days, you either trolled or joked around in an unrelated thread, so moderation was often self-sufficient to a degree.
The freedom of expression is throttled down now, though. The mods keep a lid on it and check to the curb anything they feel doesn't meet approval, and naturally that depends on the prejudice of the individual janitor or mod. Nobody jokes around like they used to, since rambling and joking tends to send a thread "off topic", which gets the thread deleted.
I still visit 4chan, but not really for the same reasons I used to. The place used to be hilarious. Now I just check in here for news about my interests, like whether or not we'll see another price hike on GW's Space Marine codex. 4chan still has a function, but not one that strictly exceeds any other forum - the place is now only nice because high traffic means faster responses to discussion.
In any case, it's not a crisis. People art tired of 4chan's bent cops. Maybe some are outraged, but most just wish you'd go away so you wouldn't be the center of attention.
