Main Page

Ponychan is a community-driven My Little Pony imageboard that continues the "brony" imageboard legacy started in 2011. Despite leadership changes, cultural shifts, and the eventual closure of its original domain (ponychan.net) in 2024, the Ponychan community has endured through its user-led efforts to maintain the site’s traditions and open discussion format. Today, Ponychan retains its role as a hub for creative expression and casual conversation at ponychan.co.

History

Ponychan was founded on February 8, 2011 as a refuge for My Little Pony fans who were banned from 4chan's /b/ board during what became known as the First Great Pony Purge. Created by Orange Blaze, Ponychan sought to establish a community distinct from 4chan, initially enforcing a culture of "love and tolerance." Over time, the site experienced various internal conflicts leading to staff and user departures. This culminated in multiple community fractures as users left in groups to create their own competing splinter chans. The largest of these, MLPchan, eventually merged back into Ponychan in 2015. Thereafter, Ponychan incorporated aspects of both sites while revitalizing the community for a time. Following the merger, the site saw various leadership changes. Administrators came and went, each leaving their mark on the culture and structure of Ponychan.

Decline (2020-2023)

[ Full Article: The Decline of Old Ponychan (2020-2023) ]

Under the administration of Toybox starting in 2020, Ponychan experienced a profound cultural shift. The administration's approach to moderation increasingly emphasized personal loyalty over adherence to the site's founding principles. This led to widespread accusations of administrative favoritism, selective enforcement of rules, and a general decline in transparency. Additionally, much of the site’s active user base was funneled into a private Discord server linked to the administration, further diminishing engagement on the imageboard itself.

Toybox's tenure also saw an erosion of the site's historically open and community-driven ethos. Decisions were made unilaterally, and attempts to solicit feedback from users were largely ignored. This disregard culminated in the controversial decision to permanently shut down Ponychan. Unlike the numerous administrative transitions of the past, no effort was made to pass the site to capable successors or engage with the community about its future.

On December 8, 2023, an abrupt announcement declared that the site would close in one month. The stated reasons for this decision were widely disputed, with many users viewing it as a betrayal of the community's trust. A press release was sent to Equestria Daily marking what was declared the official end of Ponychan (hereafter: Old Ponychan). The administration promised to maintain an archive of Old Ponychan following the shutdown, but this promise was also broken - arbitrarily erasing years of community history.

Continuity and Revival

Following the announcement of Old Ponychan’s impending closure, community members began organizing efforts to preserve the community and its imageboard format. Users discovered the open-source Ponychan repositories while exploring other platforms and alternatives, and they quickly began to establish continuity sites.

On December 20, 2023, user ⛵ announced the creation of Not Ponychan, initially hosted at NotPonychan.net. The name Not Ponychan was chosen to emphasize both the complete lack of support from the administration, as well as the resilience of the community in the face of the administration's hostility. This site faced substantial technical difficulties at launch. Shortly thereafter, on December 25, 2023, an anonymous user (later going by Kiff) launched a separate instance using the same repositories at Ponychan.org using a different hosting service, which managed to avoid many of the technical issues faced by NotPonychan.net.

The existence of multiple continuity sites with their legitimacy constantly challenged by the hostile administration led to confusion within the community. The Old Ponychan administration refused to acknowledge these efforts in official statements and instead declared that any sites other than Ponychan.net were unofficial. Additionally, a separate pony imageboard to which the administration had ties was promoted as the preferred alternative, further fragmenting the remaining user base. To this day, the hostile administration of Old Ponychan pays money annually to retain and hold hostage the domain Ponychan.net in a ridiculous attempt to retain exclusive legitimacy for a site that no longer even exists.

The existence of multiple mirrored continuity sites on different hosts allowed the new administrators to identify and address mismatches between the repositories and the various hosting environments. In this way, the last of the critical technical issues were finally resolved on NotPonychan.net as the dust was settling from the collapse of Old Ponychan. In early February, 2024, Voidchan.net (a splinter-chan of Old Ponychan created in response to Toybox's controversial administration) merged with NotPonychan.net to become the /void/ board. NotPonychan.net subsequently rebranded as Ponychan and moved to Ponychan.co. Thereafter Ponychan.org shut down and redirected to Ponychan.co, consolidating what remained of the user bases under one platform.

Important articles

• 
  Ponychan Timeline
• 
  The Decline of Old Ponychan (2020-2023)