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If you were to make an imageboard from scratch, what features would you add to it? You can completely ignore technical background for this question, just imagine neat stuff you'd like to see in an IB. If possible, specify the idea behind these features (a catch all imageboard like 8/4chan, a specific subculture like lainchan, etc..)

>>15054 posting with tags instead of having boards (would imply custom "boards" like on 8ch, also would work very well for all the "general" threads) perhaps sage by default (instead of the opposite)? also reddit-like tree view, with all the sub-trees initially closed, so that you only see direct responses to the OP, instead of all the conversations in between.

>>15054 Please add anything that you want implemented in Lainchan proper in the Request for Features thread in /q/. E.g. >>>/q/1190

>>15056 It's not such a serious thread really, as in real features that would actually enhance a particular IB. It's more of a brainstorm to get a feel for what wish they had in these types of community.

>>15055 >posting with tags instead of having boards I made board software based on this a few years ago. I was spending a lot of time on /jp/ and at the time there was a lot of dumb meta whining about board culture, so I figured the best way to not have "board culture" is by not having boards at all and allowing users to self-segregate based on their interests. Beyond that: - One reply per post. This allows the reply color-coding column in the screenshot, and thread folding. The diamond button on the right collapses threads so you can follow an isolated branch of discussion. - Websocket based real-time thread updates - Compact thread layout, because futaba clones tend not to be very good at this. - Pretty much held everything in memory and had multiple levels of caching and ran stupidly fast. It used SQLite for permanent storage but would only write to the database to periodically flush new posts and threads in bulk transactions at set intervals. Tag filtering and searches were done entirely in memory. I put it online for a while, but predictably, starting a new imageboard isn't as simple as having a nice idea for one and it didn't go anywhere.

>>15058 >>15055 >posting with tags instead of having boards How would/did moderation work with this? Would/Did a individual create a tag and then moderate it like on 8chan or was there only global moderation? Also there is some degree of barrier to entry when moving to a new board I wonder if by removing this (perhaps you're not removing it, what do you think?) you make it easier for individuals to post on a board they perhaps don't know enough to be on. >One reply per post. This allows the reply color-coding column in the screenshot, and thread folding. The diamond button on the right collapses threads so you can follow an isolated branch of discussion. >also reddit-like tree view, with all the sub-trees initially closed, so that you only see direct responses to the OP, instead of all the conversations in between. I was thinking about something similar to this awhile back to allow for bump ordering of posts within a thread creating a single UI for both boards and threads, also making things slightly easier to follow and to isolate off topic discussions. a concern of mine was that this sort of thing might promote less thorough replies and discourage replies which are relevant to multiple posts, did you notice anything like this while your board was operational or do you think this wouldn't be a problem had your board gotten more established? >Websocket based real-time thread updates >Pretty much held everything in memory and had multiple levels of caching and ran stupidly fast. It used SQLite for permanent storage but would only write to the database to periodically flush new posts and threads in bulk transactions at set intervals. Tag filtering and searches were done entirely in memory. These are both the correct way to do things, props anon. >>15054 For me personally as I expressed in another thread >>14861 >strictly moderated, invite-only anonomous forum, on skill dependent topics, with imageboard aesthetics, and persistence >This makes the most sense to me just because it's more or less a system composed of well tested parts. We know the effects of invite-only systems (lobsters), we know the effects of a account system with a imageboard (tsukichan), we know the effects of having stricter moderation (lainchan), and we know the effects of having skill dependent topics (/lambda/, lobsters, hackernews, etc), persistence likely has no effect but is simply a nice convenience. Other than this perhaps a real-time sockets based sexps, or edn api, a consistent UI which works well in w3m, and perhaps the reply scheme I mentioned above. I also really like the tilde "BBJ" idea where you have a community with access to a multi user UNIX system and on that system you have a internal bulletin board so that everyone can talk to one another and a public irc, email, gopher, etc so that the public can look at and use the projects they make. I'm not sure if this idea is relevant or not though nor am I sure about the potential of such a thing.

>>15061 My board never got off the ground for more than a few weeks. I wasn't eager to spam it around to recruit users, so everything I post about moderation or user behavior is hypothetical, probably also naive. >How would/did moderation work with this? The idea was that users could create tags freely and use up to 5 per thread, and it would be visible in the search results for any of those tags. Moderation would be global; no 8chan or reddit-style fiefdoms. Enforcing tags would only be to ensure a bare minimum good-faith effort was made to use the right ones. If a group of users had a disagreement about the exact meaning of a tag, the default answer would be to create a new one that's less ambiguous rather than police the people "doing it wrong". The only tag-specific rules would be to stay on topic in the most permissive sense possible. >a concern of mine was that this sort of thing might promote less thorough replies Everything I've seen in every forum/mailgroup/imageboard/social media site I've been to suggests people focus more intensely when they're isolated in a one-on-one discussion in a branch of a tree threaded topic versus a flat format with drive-by commentary pulling people's attention in different directions. I mostly went for the latter anyway because it's what I'm comfortable with but I don't think isolating branches of conversation hurts quality of discussion at all. If a reply truly addresses more than one post at once and isn't simply two or more separate replies stuck together, I think it's best just to forgo the reply links altogether. People tend to get stupid with mass replying on other sites.

Not applicable to most IB's, but 4chan could really use an image-only filter, so as to browse dump threads without all the filler posts.

>>15055 >posting with tags instead of having boards Isn't that how boorus work?

>>15066 you can always use 4chanx or some other userscript

>>15068 by that principle, almost all features in this thread can be manually edited on client side.

>>15064 >The idea was that users could create tags freely and use up to 5 per thread, and it would be visible in the search results for any of those tags. Moderation would be global; no 8chan or reddit-style fiefdoms. Enforcing tags would only be to ensure a bare minimum good-faith effort was made to use the right ones. If a group of users had a disagreement about the exact meaning of a tag, the default answer would be to create a new one that's less ambiguous rather than police the people "doing it wrong". The only tag-specific rules would be to stay on topic in the most permissive sense possible. That's a interesting approach. I think you might be able to guess from my ideal that it's not quite what I'd do, but it's just a difference of values nothing right or wrong about one way or another here. >Everything I've seen in every forum/mailgroup/imageboard/social media site I've been to suggests people focus more intensely when they're isolated in a one-on-one discussion in a branch of a tree threaded topic versus a flat format with drive-by commentary pulling people's attention in different directions. I mostly went for the latter anyway because it's what I'm comfortable with but I don't think isolating branches of conversation hurts quality of discussion at all. >If a reply truly addresses more than one post at once and isn't simply two or more separate replies stuck together, I think it's best just to forgo the reply links altogether. People tend to get stupid with mass replying on other sites. I completely agree, that's one of the reasons I support the idea. I was just wondering if you noticed if it discouraged thorough replies of blanket relevance to a sub-tree of the thread. I guess you could do as you mentioned for any sub-tree just by responding to the root of the sub-tree depending on how it's displayed, but perhaps this wouldn't have as much impact on the conversations where it's most relevant at the leaves of the sub-tree as it would on a flat discussion platform and discourage this sort of behaviour? The way I just thought of to at least partially deal with this if it was a issue was to have the entire tree always be visible and to have some sort of visual cue for the relative age of a post (perhaps as little as a time stamp with a different color relative to the time of the root and most recent leafs creation) so that you can at a glance check a sub tree of a thread you've been in to see if there have been any new developments further up. If it's not a problem it's not a problem though.

I'd block all American IPs.

>>15072 really? I would block all British IPs because they're the ones trying to police the fuarrrking net

>>15075 the trick is to block all IPs.

>>15054 - support for PGP signed messages (didn't Hotwheels try to implement this for 8chan back in the day?) - beginning a line with a ^would make the text in the line scroll like TempleOS window titles - gopher support and gopher-only boards to keep 4chan new users away - also, I would like to have the option to enable classic style side bar on the left, optionally with some kind of auto hide feature

>>15335 I don't understand why you couldn't do a PGP signed message on any message board by.. well signing your messages.

Get rid of thread disappearance altogether. Any design choice that can be circumvented with minimal effort is a bad feature. Maybe burst encode threads in a video format and upload it to yt (each post a very short bit of audio for the reply and the image flasing on screen). Idk why that, I just like the thought of it. Maybe run the platform as an entirely different service like a mailing list. The site is just a front end (kinda like the sheekiforums but without the aids).

>what features would you add to it? Make it NOT fuarrrkING soykaf

>>15075 You don't need to block them because they'll block themselves

make sure terminal based web browsers are supported on them, i can barely fuarrrking get to post anything as its all labelled as "automated" on my browser

An RSS feed for each board that updates every time a new post is made. 8chan claims they have this, but what their RSS does is just show new threads and not new posts like the FAQ states. That is handy if it's a fast board that regularly sees new threads, but when it's a slow board where people post in existing threads more than they start new ones, it's useless. I did make a userscript once that compensated for it by highlighting your starred boards when they got new posts, but I could never get anyone else to use it. I felt like it could have kept a lot of smaller boards alive if it had gotten off the ground, because it'd make checking for new posts a lot less tedious. I once made a script that takes a thread and (among other things) generates a "discussion index" value based on how many posts are quoting other replies in the thread, with replies to OP not counting. A high index means there's a heavy amount of discussion (and/or soykafflinging) going on, and a low index is indicative of an everybody-posts-nobody-reads thread. I'd probably implement that just to see if anyone makes use of it. I also wish I could figure out some way to make a system that deters people who come to the board solely to take screencaps and post them wherever. Especially if they're doing it to nutpick dumb posts for some "soykaf people I don't like say"-type subreddit, and especially if they're the ones making the posts themselves just to screencap them.

>>15077 just block all proxys so anyone with a dynamic ip or vpn cant use it without making a bridge

A tag feature, an auto delete post after x feature.

elaborate modlogs, every single action mods and jannies take should be logged and easily publically accessible and understandable

A password field for every post that encrypts everything, no ability to post WITHOUT a password, no plaintext stored on the server. Automatic generation of public keypairs for each post so you can have anonymous private messaging and replies. Keep everything clientside, and there's no need for moderation, as the server owner has no defacto ability to see what's posted and the users can filter out spammers by private messaging eachother passwords, forming their own per-community web of trust. Go even further and just make the board an encrypted fileserver, put everything in a browser extension that can pull from a list of servers that support the format. Since everything encrypted and the service is redundant, running a server isn't very risky, and neither is pulling from untrusted servers. Everyone runs one if they want, and includes all the links they find to the list they draw posts from. End result is a really obscure and insular system, and the only new user-proof, swat proof, internet bill proof, power-mad moderator proof, anonymous bunker system >>15071 Basing an imageboard on tags also allows for seamless merging or splitting of multiple sites. You can search for tags and aggregate them and it's like they're all on one server, unlike thread/board systems where everything would either be fragmented or strictly segregated.

>>15058 Woah, I didn't know qqueue posted here.

>>15055 It would be cool if users could create meta tags, which could not be posted under but would simply aggregate every post a few specific tabs for the user to conveniently view. For instance, you only want to see Linux threads, you can use the Linux tag but if you want to see all technology you look at the tech meta tag which includes all technology related tags.

I would make an image board where: every post included the poster's IP address, publicly viewable anyone can post anyone can delete anyone's post Instead of free speech, it will be free censorship People will self censor, knowing their IP address will be public People will censor any content they find disagreeable that others posted This kills all political discussions, porn, spam, basically everything wrong with the internet The only posts that will be allowed to remain with be interesting, and even those will likely be wiped out by some griefer bot with regularity

What we really need is an actual overboard. No, not an index site indexing indexes of boards. An overboard. A single board, with every other image/text board contained within, all with ability to post on the fly. The already mentioned tags already exist, they're words in the post, and should be searchable. There, I solved imageboard culture.

Tags are a decent idea, in my view a great imageboard have multiple generals, all with decent discussion, instead of multiple and repetitive threads with no discussion or oneliners, which is what you find in big sites like 4chan or reddit. From web forums I also liked how all those simple threads like what are you reading, show us your wallpaper, etc usually had their own "games and offtopic" section, keeping a zone for casual chatting that I don't think lainchan (/r/ is more "discussion that doesn't fit other boards") or most chans have (/b/ is just terrible) Quality enforcers (post length, high quality moderation) and just a bit of that secret club stuff (invite only, member limit, "forced" contribution i.e. creating a thread or getting deleted) seem to me the way to maintain quality once things start to pick up, as that signal to noise ratio thing has been discussed on tons of threads.

>>17322 While at it, it's not just imageboards. The whole internet is wrong. Data is not properly organized. This Lainchan thread should be on a coordinate somewhere close to similar threads on other boards, which are in turn close to similar wiki articles and whatnot. I should be able to easily navigate through closely related subjects. But I'm not. In other words our data is organized like pic1 and it should be like pic2. Imageboards would be a good start to start fixing this. I think some kind of range selection in word count per page body would be a good coordination system. Kinda veering off-topic I guess but it's tied into imageboard structure, plus it's an interesting subject and has been bothering me for a while. Closely related to >>>/hum/6578 although I got side-tracked there.

>>17321 i am afraid that would kill all discussion though. just because i don't think suzumiya haruhi is my godess, you delete my post even though i wrote an analysis of the whole work. i guess you want chaos caused by this volatile behaviour of your board, which sounds intriguing... but would it actually work? would that board have any users other than spambots?

>>15072 heh, i guess that would make the board less political... but what about russian or chinese ip addresses? (note: i am talking hypothetically, i don't support blanket bans like this...) >>15075 american ego hurt? :/ >>15077 now you're talking.. >>16269 isn't the thing people like about lainchan the fact it lets you do this?

>>15054 1. ========================== OP can design entry / posting conditions to his thread. A simple implementation in quiz form replacing captcha would be sufficient. Such a thread-unique filter will prevent automated botspam much better than captcha which is already broken. Secondary it will block idiots roleplaying experts given OP asks the right questions to the topic in his quiz. This should overall improve topic quality. I would further cement this with hardware fingerprinting among those who allow JS. 2. ========================== hidden layer. To evade brigading pr squads a section where everything is encrypted. This way marketing can't find and take over discussion. We have a solution here of course already but i'm thinking of a site buildin solution that even a fb mom can manage to use. Bring back genuine discussion between people instead of man vs machine.

>>17332 >given OP asks the right questions to the topic in his quiz I like the idea, but it seems difficult to ask questions that can't be answered using a search engine while still being broad enough to allow almost all knowledgeable individuals to answer them.

>>17333 i think the effort required to do that would already filter out the worst offenders. The same laziness that leads to that bad behaviour should lead them to be too lazy to google the solutions.

federation: so anyone who hosts an imageboard can set it up to allow other imageboards to read and post to the imageboard in a corehent manner, so that one could set up a "megaboard" that aggregates other imageboards, like how travel agencies aggregate flights from different airlines, accomodations from different hotels, hostels, inns, etc.. The "backend" would probably have each post stored as it's own thing with a bunch of tags, some which might specify things like which threads, boards, chans, etc. it belongs to and in which positions, and the generic interface would be to access this database, so it's like booru style for any data, not just images, and the 'imageboards' would then be interfaces to these databases, more for organizing the presentation of the data. Also, Imageboards as they are have -nyms as an afterthought, or are actively discouraged. I would have it set up more like a traditional BBS, except that registration would never be required, nor actively discouraged. I would probably also have it set up so that the user can have their own imageboard on their machine that only they can access, where they can set it up to post to other boards, forums, mailing lists, usenets, blags, other fairly benign systems, dreadits, twatters, faceblocks, and other not so benign systems. Also, I would have it set up so that anyone can mirror/host any posts they like, and so that anyone would be able to access the posts they would want from any of the available mirrors. this might 'solve' the moderation problem, by having the information markets, and, for some people, their own personal taste as well, decide what information is kept and what is not. If people want to read soykaf posts, let them read soykaf posts, but they'll have to pay for it anyway, so they'll have even more incentive to not read soykaf posts, and by not reading soykaf posts, they will effectively vote with their ears (really, with their wallets, but that would be dictated by their ears, so yeah.), so the readers will be an en masse moderation, which would be resistant to censorship, because anyone would be able to quickly mirror it as soon as it's up, and decide for themselves whether it's something worth supporting, and there are always enough cultured people who will uphold high culture regardless of immediate profits, who will be, have always been, and are currently, the only true bastions of free culture. Also, I would have it set up so that people could charge other people however much for accessing their copies of the content, advertizing the prices, of course, so that there is no need for advertizing and other bad practises so common on the internet, and so that people can make an extra buck by having their cinderblock do something other than idling 90% of the time, other than the cliche cryptomining, etc. hm, it sounds like this isn't even an imageboard anymore.. maybe it's been done before?

I would make it collect all possible data that it could, and then, rather than selling it, just publish it for all visitors to have available to them. Equal access is key. Also, this would make people care more about what they post, because then they would see exactly what everyone can know about them from what they do, which would cause people to not post sensitive information, which would cause the number of data leaks exposing sensitive data to be lower, and would cause the harm done by any data leaks to be lower. Short term, everyone, except those that are already careful, suffers; Long term, everyone becomes more careful, and everyone, except the particularly adamantine, suffers less.

Also, for the random names feature on lainchan, I would set it up to see what names people write in manually, so that they might be added into the pool of cool names for random names.

>>17330 The unusability is more the point. It would be an art project of sorts. The opposite of Twitter, where a small handful of people censor anything they don't like. With this imagined IB, we would democratize censorship. Everyone is given the right to censor everyone else. Would it work out? Twitch played pokemon and managed to win the game. Maybe to keep it interesting, the delete rate could be throttled based on the post rate. Usual IBs delete content based on image and post limits. Mine would just delete based on censorship.

>>17345 i imagine they would just become their own echo chamber... they'd form their own community based on what they like (or not censor). people who would get their posts deleted often would just leave or learn to not talk about stuff that gets them deleted. it'd be interesting to watch that happen and see what kind of people would take control of it.

>>17324 The internet is organized into communities, not into ideas. As much as internet communities tend to be echo chambers, creating an internet structured around ideas would be even worse. I think if you change the entire internet to be only similar ideas, you're going to reduce intellectual churn, reducing the amount of new ideas you get introduced to.

>>17352 >reducing the amount of new ideas you get introduced to quality > quantity

>>17345 >With this imagined IB, we would democratize censorship. Everyone is given the right to censor everyone else. That would just result in whichever hivemind has the most free time out-posts and out-censors other hiveminds.

>>17351 >>17362 Perhaps. Making the poster's IP address visible would have all sorts of interesting effects though. Like, i would link it directly to the 'i know what you download' site to out their torrent habits. I'd geolocate if IPv4. Knowing what you download and where you live could be enough to out you IRL. If it ever got popular, I'd probably start buying up web trackers and posting browser habits too. I'd definitely display user agent, and even phone models for the phone posters. Basically any creepy info I can squeeze out of your browser, I would display with the post. I probably would also show which IP deleted a deleted post. Then everyone can know that too.

>>17365 Calm down Google

>>17365 Proxies and user agent spoofing exist, and chances are that if someone really wanted to control the ideas flowing on your board, they'd use these two tools to the fullest.

>>17370 If the IB teaches plebs how to do any of that, it served its purpose. Scares the stupid off the internet or raises their intelligence level. win win in my book.

>>17371 so that's what 2channel was about :P

>>17324 >>17322 like this >>>/hum/14317

17321 gubbai dissent. regarding syndication, however, we need more flexible syndicability from each web source. as >>16268 mentioned, 8ch's syndication is kinda crap because it doesn't syndicate what he wants it to syndicate. it would be nice if you could more easily make your own syndicate (and if you've sufficient audacity to publish your syndicates, maybe some others'll like them). gubbai all your database. perhaps some could be done towards this without the sources' participations, but each source's participation would aid that source's syndicability. yearn the semisec of your virtual reality's selfabsumity. gubbai mai rabu.

How quick and easy would it be to set up a server running vichan or something similar with little to no webdev experience? I had an idea to try to run an imageboard on a LAN run on a raspberry pi powered by a solar panel. Am I overreaching here?

>>15054 I would make it exactly like 4kev.org. You can't top that

>>15058 How did you compensate for high post ids? Your screenshot stops at post 100. How did your Ui scale once higher digits became common?