/leftypol/

From Leftypedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
File:Cat-alunya.png
Cat-Alunya is the semi-official mascot of /leftypol/.

/leftypol/ is a leftist political board which was originally founded as an 8chan board in 2014 by imageboard users seeking refuge from the reactionaries that were taking over their home boards (particularly 4chan's /lit/). Its users are known for their dislike of identity politics and everything liberal. Memes originating from /leftypol/ have been of profound influence on the online left, giving us classics such as Porky, Nazbol Gang (and the X GANG meme in general), and political catgirls. Additional /leftypol/ memes include:

  • References to socialist leader Enver Hoxha (and the multitudes of bunkers he built during his reign in Albania)
  • References to communalist theorist Murray Bookchin
  • References to German egoist philosopher Max Stirner, particularly his concept of 'spooks' (Stirner proposed that most commonly accepted social institutions, including the notion of the state, property as a right, natural rights in general and the very notion of society, were mere illusions — "spooks" or ghosts in the mind)
  • References to Marxist computer scientist and economist William Paul Cockshott and his theory of cybernetic socialism (beginning in 2017)

In mid-2017, the number of /leftypol/ users saw a steep decline when the board owner at that time purged many users who who supported the Syrian Democratic Forces controlled region in north-eastern Syria, most of whom were anarchists and other non-Marxist-Leninists, and generally implemented much stricter ideological controls. This was the event which caused the creation of the short-lived splinter /leftpol/. Some major events in this period included the wiping of every post on /leftypol/ by a moderator who was sympathetic to /leftpol/, and the handover of the board owner position of /leftpol/ to Space_, who was also the owner of Bunkerchan. Under Space_ /leftpol/ had a very low level of moderation in the opposite extreme from /leftypol/, leading to reactionary spam and its slow decline in number of posters. The original board owner of /leftypol/ who was responsible for the strict regulations would later resign in 2019, after which they were no longer enforced.

In August 2019, following the total and complete shutdown of 8chan due to the El Paso shooting, /leftypol/ migrated to a leftist imageboard, Bunkerchan. This was credited with an uptick in new users and a downtick of old users, presumably due to the fact that the events coincided with some major left wing subreddits being shutdown or quarantined (the Chapo Trap House subreddit) as well as the fact that Bunkerchan was not blacklisted by Google as 8chan was, presumably allowing users to find /leftypol/ using normal Google searches.

From mid 2019 until the end of 2020, /leftypol/ was hosted on Bunkerchan. However, the arrangement did not ultimately satisfy the moderation team of /leftypol/ who were unhappy with the poor technical situation and an incompatibility between _Space's desire to be the sole webmaster of the site and their own horizontal structure, which made it impossible for the needs of the /leftypol/ technical team to be met. In December 2020, the feud became public and Space_ removed the /leftypol/ team, who then re-established /leftypol/ at the former domain of leftypol.org, which they had been preparing in anticipation of this clash.

Currently, /leftypol/ and its side boards reside at leftypol.org.

Splinter communities

A discord server known as "Unofficial Leftypol" (ULP) was created in June 2016 which has no relationship with the /leftypol/ site.[1]

In late 2019, due to several technical difficulties with Bunkerchan, a handful of users left and founded leftypol.org as an alternative to Bunkerchan's /leftypol/ board, using all-new software and user-created boards where users could self-moderate. However, the site hosted a low number of users, and in April 2020, leftypol.org was handed to a different admin and operated as a traditional forum, rather than as an imageboard. Within a few months, the site had closed permanently, with the domain name being handed over to the /leftypol/ staff. In December 2020, the leftypol.org domain was back in use, this time hosting /leftypol/ proper.

In the period from December 2020 to May 2021, Bunkerchan used to host a version of /leftypol/ which was managed by d011ars along traditional hierarchical lines, however, it had frequent technical issues and much laxer standards for moderation than previously due to low numbers of both moderators and technical staff, and it struggled with low user numbers. This version of /leftypol/ ended with the redirection of Bunkerchan to leftypol.org.

On August 8, 2021, a coup happened on leftypol.org caused by an administration dispute. This in turn gave birth to leftychan.net, a splinter group run by the disagreeing mods.

There is also a Matrix community for /leftypol/ frequented by its users and administration team, which is available at https://matrix.to/#/#leftypol-antechamber:matrix.org

See also

References

External links