Rules one and two are silly to keep on perpetuating, especially in this day and age. 4chan is well known throughout in the annals of the series of tubes. There's the Wikipedia article that's been there since 2004, 4chan being mentioned in publications, television shows, "traditional" western Internet forums...I even saw a few posts mentioning 4chan on some Usenet newsgroups.
It was bound to happen; 4chan has a different format to posting and sharing images (or text) than your normal run-of-the-mill forum, and ignoring the fact that a website that is offered to the public without any fee to charge for entry (i.e. Something Awful) on someone else's dime, with complete and total anonymity; (with the exception of a moderator's ability to see your IP address) it would be foolish to think that such a place could not have the potential to become wildly popular.
The rules only apply during raids because, why would you want your raidees to know where you're coming from? Other than that, the rules are what some would call, A JOKE. Since the internet is full of aspies however, they are treated as a binding creed.
Name:
Anonymous2009-04-04 11:06
Rules of the internet was a joke. People wanted to create a cult, and decided to take it seriously. Before, there was no need for "rules 1 and 2", because you did not want anyone to know that you browsed 4chan. Now it's basically any other humdrum forum except with anonymous posting.
>>9
Mostly this.
But the rules were made more serious for raids, in order to avoid an influx of newfags from raided fagsites. Ironically, very few good trolls took part in the raids, and most were "LOL U GOT OWNDZ BY 4CHAN ANONYMOUS DOES NOT FORGIVE" internet tough guys. This just accelerated the ytmnd/gaiafags coming to 4chan, while the quality anons who didn't partake in raids did not brag about 4chan, and thus didn't bring in any new people from other sites. Thus 90% of post-04 users come from ytmnd/ebaums 14-y/o "internet culture" or extensions thereof.
In conclusion: Whatever slight seriousness there was to the rules backfired and fucked 4chan in the ass. Yes the rules are jokes.
Rules 1 and 2 are for raids and when people scream rules 1 and 2 at you at any other time then they dont know what rules 1 and 2 are.
So newfags, shut the hell up nigger-jew!