What is it with those websites called imageboards?

[GuillermoGage 246]

I've tried to get into them, not the -booru kinds, the -chan kinds that resemble forums.  They are basically like regular forums, but in a manner that is less well-navigated.

 

You don't get a nice neat list for created topics, you just go onto a category of board and all the threads are open on one page like a facebook wall. there is the option to minimize thread topics, with that minus sign in a square, but still, they aren't made into links.

 

(well,this was not the case for a board called wakachan, but that site is oddly hard to navigate)

 

Basically, I do not understand why people even use these -chan imageboards and why they are so heavily credited with influencing Internet culture with image macros, when regular forums are technologically capable of having lots of embedded images and video links without slowing down, as far as I know.

 

imageboards have the option, by default even, to post anonymously.

 

But I have scoured the Internet, and their are basically two categories of imageboard that have a SafeForWork section.  (although the ads will not be)

 

ones that are so anemically underpopulated that you don't know if anyone will ever comment,

 

and ones that are so active that you can never keep track of a conversation, because gets buried to the point of being no longer available, even with an archiver site. This is basically 4chan.

 

And generally, the people can barely have a coherent conversation that one can keep track of, including on specific-topic boards, as in, not off-topic or random boards.

 

It seems like a form of internet that should have gone totally obsolete sometime in 2007 at least.

Edited January 28, 2013 by GuillermoGage

[Betez 1,734]

The whole point of 4chan is to be anonymous, so nobody'll know who you are. An image board isn't a forum, it's an image board. The point is to post images and talk about them, which may then lead to a conversation. If you don't like it, don't go on it.

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

I don't use 4Chan because I find that having to enter a verification every time you post is pointless and time consuming. If they didn't have that I'd be more into image boards.

[Throwaway19573639385 764]

4chan is an imageboard, it's kind of like a talk-about-anything forum that is just really quick in updating. The charm of the whole thing is that it's quick, there's always something new to discover, to be disgusted by or to enjoy. It's like a thriving super internet culture working with the speed of sound. I like it because just so much to see in 4chan.