World2ch was an English-language bulletin board that was established by Taichirou Kosugi¹⁾ on March 14, 2003,²⁾ moved to its own domain by April 26, 2003,³⁾ then it ungracefully shut down around May 2004 as it was run by a teenager who didn't know any English⁴⁾ and sorta regrets it.⁵⁾

Back on August 5, 2002, a handful of 2channel users considered making an 'international 2channel',⁶⁾ and the tripcode user, “◆2chtOdqo” (later ◆hp2chtOdqo), briefly set up Usa2ch. Due to server issues, they gave up and published the “Eng2ch” script on March 3, 2003,⁷⁾ so another tripcode user, “◆RIR6uHX9bE” (“RIR6”), just borrowed the script and quickly set up World2ch at the temporary “newswatch.cool.ne.jp” domain.⁸⁾

For whatever reason, this iteration gained traction,⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ users helped re-translate their script, then RIR6 bought the “world2ch.net” domain¹¹⁾ and moved the website there on April 26, 2003.¹²⁾ This would somehow attract non-Japanese users, though the 'details' are sparse, then RIR6 had somehow set up the first English-language translation of Futaba's imageboard script at port 8080 on June 1, 2003.¹³⁾¹⁴⁾

Within the second 2channel thread,¹⁵⁾ more issues started to surface,¹⁶⁾ and “RIR6” opted to stop reading the thread by January 1, 2004.¹⁷⁾ The last update was near February 22, 2004,¹⁸⁾ then World2ch was left in an abandoned state.¹⁹⁾ Soon after, World2ch had approximately died around May 9–14, 2004 as the servers were taken offline due to a vague policy violation, presumably since their imageboards were still running.

• World2ch technically had an April Fools Day joke in 2003, but it was just a 'fake shutdown' post.²¹⁾
• In his blog post, RIR6 states that he mainly browsed 2channel's /news/, /offmatrix/, and /flash/ boards,²²⁾ which confirms that the /news/ board was still 2channel's centerpiece in the early 2000s.
• There was actually *three* imageboards, not two,²³⁾ and World2ch's fork and translation of Futaba was downloadable, but this script that predates 4chan is presumably lost to time.
• 0037 was somewhat invested in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election at the time.²⁴⁾²⁵⁾
• Menchi/Shii's famous²⁶⁾ rants against 4chan and Something Awful²⁷⁾ is partially visible,²⁸⁾ but it remains a mystery on how the Wayback Machine somehow 'lost' their copy of the famous thread.
• Keepweep/Weepjp, founder of weep.jp and shii.net, had a history with Japanese Wikipedia.

• Golgolmois
• World4ch

• World2ch [Archive] - The front page of World2ch, archived April 1, 2004.
  • @darakeru.com on Bluesky - The founder.
• World2ch Historical Society [Archive]
  • World2ch [Archive] on World2ch Historical Society - 0037's article.
• World2ch [Archive] on Everything Shii Knows - Shii's article.

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