It's pretty simple I think. Most of the people who used to use image boards don't any more. those who remain are people who don't feel welcome on the platforms everyone else moved to. that's why it seems so hostile and grim. hostile and grim people are most of who remain. It sucks, but I think there's a way to turn it around. imageboards in their current state are kinda outdated from a technical standpoint. I think with better software people could come to like imageboard like websites again. Discourse has shown that at least a partial turnaround is possible with innovative features and a rethinking of the core ideas behind that kind of website.

>>1045 What features would attract more people? I'm pretty skeptical of your claim.

>>1063 It's hard to know what specific features would make imageboards more attractive to "normies", but an easy first step would be to take the "good" ideas that other websites often implement. Most of these probably wouldn't be appreciated by current users at first, but I think as long as it's implement right, none of them are harmful, even if they're used by websites that are harmful. >ordinary user accounts they could be used to save things like watched threads, site settings, multi-boards, which posts were created by you so you can delete them without having to set and remember a deletion password, among other things. it should never be required though. That alone would go a long way towards being more appealing to new users. They might even be good for privacy if they can replace ip addresses for moderation purposes. I imagine that if these were implemented, they could also just be used to manage boards too. >upvoting (but crucially, NOT downvoting) Being able to support a post that you like in a easy way feels good. People like showing support, even if all it does it make a funny number go up. You can see how the lack of upvoting manifests in imageboards through all the replies in threads that are just some variant of "this" or "based" or "i agree". This is basically just an upvote in the form of a post, that takes up space in the thread, wastes readers' time, and doesn't get counted in any way. Having a way for users to actually upvote instead of these pointless "i agree" replies would be nice and I don't really see the issue with it. most of the issues people bring up with site like reddit and other sites being a hivemind because of the scoring is mostly the fault of downvoting. I can't think of a single good use for downvoting. It just discourages people from sharing unpopular views, especially if a post with enough downvotes gets hidden or rendered less visible. Unlike upvotes, these are unquestionably bad and should be left behind. >board blacklist being able to add boards to a blacklist, where it and any posts from it will be hidden from view (maybe with some optional exceptions you can enable) would be very cool. For a nice new-user experience, maybe the blacklist could be filled out with some of the spicier boards at first, and users can just remove those boards if they want to see them. a little toggle somewhere to enable and disable the blacklist temporarily (like boorus let you do) would be cool too >posting threads to multiple boards and forwarding threads to other boards (cross-posting) this is pretty self-explanatory. A quick way to post a thread to multiple boards that it fits in would be cool. Especially if you could do it after the post with a thread that you come across and want to see on another board too. A nice idea for board discovery would be backlinks to all the other boards' version of the thread that was cross-posted. I'm not sure how things would work with the posts in the thread though. Should all the replies across the different boards be shared or synced together, or should all the threads just be treated as completely separate? these are just a few ideas I came up with. I know they probably sound stupid and too reddit-like, but people said the same thing about user board creation, and that actually turned out to be a cool idea that was worth keeping around.

>>1064 >upvoting (but crucially, NOT downvoting) I wish knew more about behaviorism to explain in-depth what this kind of reinforcement does to a site specifically but speaking from experience I think good sites/boards just have good moderation. That could be an interesting board experiment though, and I do like the other suggestions those seem like good innovations.

>>1037 there is a book about this but i haven't read it.

>>1037 I'm a zoomer but I remember the culture that forums used to have, and always thought that anonymous imageboards were meant to subvert forum culture. Forums for a long time were explicitly built around creating a digital identity, often to the detriment of any kind of meaningful conversation. Reddit kinda inherited that vibe by encouraging as much updoots as possible, leading to cabals of autists who won't log off talking to themselves. Chans subverted that, and were a product of a specific point in time. Anonymity allowed one to be free from consequences, and allowed individual posts to stand on their own merit rather than character or reputation. One of the runaway consequences of this is that it encouraged a death spiral of self awareness and irony to stand out. Weeb autismos with no real personality to socialize with could find solace in a collective community of likeminded teenagers, and the lack of accountability enabled raw and meaningful socializing and learning compared to forums and other social media which felt almost corporate in comparison. But 13 year old /b/tards from 2007 are in their 30s and balding in a world that is objectively worse in every way, having witnessed the few things they held dear degrade. It's not the imageboards that have become erratic and cynical, but the people within them as a sociological phenomenon. All the things that were a product of imageboards in their prime(the secret club, the novelty of japanese media, computers, the humor) have either died, or have completely lost their luster due it everything becoming normalized and people squeezing the joys of their youth for serotonin in a world that otherwise doesn't provide it. How many people are still digital natives and chan/anime adjacent in their mind but don't really game, watch anything, learn anything, or do anything but doomscroll between shifts at work and sleep? These things are reflections of the people who made and occupied them, in the same way few people can truly capture the magic of a past era of music because it no longer lives in its original context. Everything in the moment is a new and evolving thing.