A textboard is a simple kind of Internet forum that does not require registration. While popular in Japan, they remain relatively unknown outside of it, in contrast to imageboards (such as 4chan).
Features
One of the key differences between textboards and traditional forums is that textboards allow users to post without registration, and often encourage anonymous discussion. The founder of 2channel, Hiroyuki Nishimura, says the philosophy behind anonymous posting is that "anonymous posting is good because it means that „all information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will workâ€." Many textboards support a form of pseudo-registration by allowing users to use tripcodes, although users tend to post anonymously.
Textboards also tend to be much simpler than traditional forums. While forums software such as phpBB or vBulletin support image or other media embedding, private messaging, polls, and various other features, textboards allow only the posting of text.
Notable textboards
- Ayashii World - Introduced anonymous posting
- 2channel - Largest forum in Japan, receiving millions of posts a day
- Futaba Channel - Created imageboards, inspired by textboards
- dis.4chan.org - formerly "world4ch", the textboard section of 4chan
Texboard software
- Kareha is a commonly used open-source textboard software loosely modelled on the scripts used on 2channel, and uses structured XHTML and CSS layout.
- Shiichan is another 2ch-type message board software written in PHP, created by Shii in 2004.
- Perfect Dark (P2P) is a Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) application that contains textboards.
See also
- Imageboard
- 2channel
- Internet forum
References
External links
- Overscript (an imageboard and textboard software listing)
- Meltingwax Text Overchan (a text overchan)