What makes an imageboard or textboard work? 3 things:

1. Openness - It must be easy to access and to post. As refugees from Something Awful's paid account systems, Shii defined the value of an anonymous imageboard as easy and inviting to post without having to create an account.
2. Anonymity - Moot and Shii valued the ability for people to live and speak without reputations, something that is restored by the existence of the anonymous imageboard. This is in keeping with the Japanese tradition of Honne and Tatemae, where society itself forces people to mask their true beliefs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae

and thus made 2ch valuable to the entire nation of Japan as a place where people could release their inner feelings
3. Critical Mass and Community Vibrance - This component is harder for an imageboard clone to reproduce. The community must be vibrant and speedy, such that you can expect a reply within a few minutes or hours of posting. Without a strong community, the board is as good as dead, as we see with many textboards or imageboards.

>>1
Do you by chance have autism?

speed is among the least important features, indeed it is often overemphasised (such as the PPM count on 8ch). speed comes with a sharp reduction in post quality. a community can be vibrant without it.

>>2
Do not 4chan here

Op... you're not wrong, but you're not right. Hope that clarifies things for you.

Whereas point 3 is considered, vibrancy and speed are not necessarily correlated. Many people prefer boards where discussion is thoughtful and insightful. That may come at the cost of quick response but can be desirable nonetheless

>>6
This. Just being active doesn't make something better if all that those active users do is post shit. I've found that when communities get too big they always seem to go to shit.

Ever try to start your own imageboard/textboard?

>>9
I'm thinking of doing one just for kicks. I'll be sure to spam it here.

>>1
as a part of 1, it also needs to be well designed enough for easy browsing

This is wrong. All imageboards or any type of anonymous posting is flawed.

I haven't had the will to figure out why this is, regardless I have observed many anonymous mediums of mass communication. In every case the actual topic or conversation is doomed to become off topic or obscured until it is something else entirely.

>>12
This can also happen on forums with names, it's not something constrained to anonymous mediums of mass communication (AMMC).

meme me

>>13
I find that quality discussion/conversation is directly hinged to the moderation.

Community or self moderation leads to complete and utter garbage. And due to the added difficulty of moderating anonymous boards leads to a degradation of quality. Somethingawful, which is basically the polar opposite of anonymous board, took it a step further with a pay wall.

>>15
Moderation does play a key role in maintaining the quality of a board, but every mod walks a fine line between just upholding the quality and outright censorship. It's a very tricky thing to get just right.
Sometimes shitposts need to be left alone, as they can lead to great things. See Baneposting.

>>1
Textboards are like ZELDA?

Textboards are like LINK the more you post, the more you think

The quality of internet gathering spots correlates with the coolness of their moderators (c)

>>1
Pick two?