I have an idea to build an internet community for a topic, that interests me, but isn't discussed anywhere besides a subreddit and probably a handful of Discord and IRC servers. The thing is that I like anonymous message boards in principle and I prefer them, as a user, greatly over regular forums. The idea of anonymity rather than pseudonymity is just appealing to me on many levels. However, when it comes to being the administrator of such a place, it seems that a regular forum (something running Xenforo or phpBB for instance) has lower maintenance needs than an textboard/imageboard. It's not that I'm lazy, but I just don't want to deal with spammers, CSAM posters and all the kinds of annoying shit people do when they are not bound to an account. The kinds of spam that is a regular thing on most imageboard, yet on other forums, where you have to have a registered account to use, it's practically non-existent (at least in forums that are dedicated to hobbies and particular interests. While it makes spam practically non-existent, it probably also reduces the overall traffic by a lot, as nobody wants to make an account somewhere, when they could just not. I'm still not sure whether I should make this forum/message board at all, but assuming I am going to do this eventually, can any seasoned admins give me their two cents on whether a forum or anonymous textboard is preferable for a certain interest of mine? Personally I am inclined towards textboards, since that is what I have grown up with and what I think would be my preferred option if I were the user, nonetheless it's still a different thing from an administrators perspective.
Anonymity is great because nobody can become popular, well-known, or more important than somebody else. Many of the ills of the modern internet are there, because people put too much importance on their identity, a thing that is not there in anonymous places like here. This has the disadvantage that nobody knows anyone really, I suppose that's a thing you have to ponder, if that is really what you want. Such is my reasoning why I prefer anonymity, is that though worth the nonsense and cancer you have to deal with when being a site administrator? The spam that plaques this place is pissing me off, despite me not even having to care, just having to endure it as a user, so I doubt it will be any better when I run such a site myself.
Thoughts on this are greatly appreciated. What do you think is better for a community for a niche interest? Should I stick to my roots and make it a textboard, or is a forum with mandatory registration the preferable option considering the ease of moderation of forum-like places?
Sounds like you're trying to appeal to a chunk of an already niche community.
Maybe ask what kind of site the fans of your thing are into?
You wanna appeal to them, not just to you.
And some people actually like that whole popularity thing.
Also, you're gonna have to deal with spam, accounts or not.
If you're not seeing spam, it's probably just efficient moderation.
Couldn't really say without knowing what your interest is and what its community is like. 1chan - .us not .net - was an example of an otherwise normal IB that required registration to post. Another thing would be all posts are anonymous but have to be manually mod approved which would quickly get tiring.
Forums more time consuming in creating, managing, and posting on. Text boards, not so much.
But even image and text boards are becoming dead and used less just like when forums were left behind and ditched.
>Maybe ask what kind of site the fans of your thing are into?
I don't know if I get your question correctly, but if you are asking what kind of site the people in the already-existing niche would be using, then probably a forum, since they are used to Reddit and I assume that is the closest to that. On the other hand, I would guess more people would start using it, when no account is needed.
>>3
>Couldn't really say without knowing what your interest is and what its community is like.
The whole shtick would a board for discussing collapse of civilization, mostly apolitical though, not unlike r/collapse, but maybe with a bit more quality-control (that's probably bold of me wanting quality when I probably won't get any traffic at all). Outside of Reddit there is practically no place to discuss this besides some quality-less, probably dead, and uninteresting Telegram groups and Discord chatrooms.
>>4
I also assume it's more time consuming to maintain the software for a forum as opposed to a textboard. I'd rather maintain Kareha than phpBB.