I figured since the threads about the English *chans on the English *chans' own fora usually create drama, flamewars and trolling since the respective community usually gets defensive about "its own site", this could be a good place to talk about them, even though the board is losely associated with WAKAchan.
Don't let that bother you, though. This board and the idea for it have been older than WAKAchan. It won't really matter where you are coming from or if you even want to talk about an English *chan (4chan, iichan, 5chan, fchan, 0chan, etc.) at all or rather about a Japanese, Chinese or Taiwanese *chan, imageboard or whatever. Rational arguments above usernames and community cliques!
This thread should just serve the use to make a few remarks about a particular imageboard site / community, how they relate to each other, what differences, opportunities, etc. there could be, both from a technical standpoint as well as from a "sociological" standpoint, if you want to talk about that. And of course, there's more...
Please try to refrain from trolling this thread too much. Also, please don't pay any trolls herein too much attention, i.e. don't feed them. Let's keep this civil, everyone!
>I would really like to see the concept of an image board divorce itself from Japanophilia/otakuism.
I totally agree with you, anonymous image boards is a great concept that has a lot bigger potential than swapping anime-images and porn between nerds.
MAEboard attempted to do this with a computer-board, but it was still reeking of otakuness. Also, I would like to see more use of anonymous discussion-boards, as those are a lot better than the "old-fashioned" forum-software (like Shii would say).
People in the west haven't realized how good this yet.
First off, I'll note that I agree entirely with >>1's thoughts on this board and this discussion topic. Next:
> Furthermore, the 5chan-idlechan war (or whatever it was) was unnecessary, unproductive, self-destructive.
True. However biased I may be, though, I'd put most of the blame for that on Zabadab and his shadowy backers in the porn industry. And with him gone, the whole community has been much more quiet. I didn't hate 5chan as a site enough to wish it gone forever, but if it was the only way to get rid of him, then we're better off with the whole site gone.
The reason I disliked 5chan had more to do with how it was designed more for swapping obsessively categorized porn than for any kind of community or discussion.
> I would really like to see the concept of an image board divorce itself from Japanophilia/otakuism.
Now, personally, I am quite the otaku and do enjoy the anime-themed boards, but I agree that there is a lot more potential for other things. The image board concept is just not well-known enough in the west outside the anime community for anything to really happen yet, though. That needs to change, but I am not sure how.
Also, we need an English-language Coaster Board! (http://101fwy.com/coaster/index.htm)