I have been thinking about starting up and running an image board, but I am fairly new to the whole thing. After doing some research I see that most image boards encourage or force anonymity. I can understand that, but I would still like to be able to set up an image board that requires users to register, simply giving them the option to be anonymous on the board.
Why do I want to do that? Well for a few reason, one, because I feel it would be easier to handle the users that way. If someone is acting like a idiot, it is going to be easier to ban them or keep an eye on them. The second reason why is because, a lot of users on the board are stupid kids who take advantage of the anonymity on image boards to cause problems in the community. I feel making it so you have to register a account on the image board, may cut down on the amount of problem users.
So before I go ahead and pay for a domain name and a host and all that good stuff, I'd like to know about that sort of thing. If anyone would like to pass along some insight, please, by all means, do so.
ID:277525
 Jun 22 2007, 11:57 am
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It depends, if you encourage free speech, don't make them register.
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If you allow anonymity and you're using standard forum software, be prepared to delete a lot of spam. And by "spam" I mean the pharmaceuticals and adult entertainment variety.
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A couple pointers:
* It can be hard to generate interest and get posters; you won't be 4chan after a day * If your board gets enough popularity, you WILL be raided by a larger imageboard with shock images, child porn, and other grotesque images * Speaking of that, trolls will post child porn and shock images to cause problems * Moderation is a necessary evil if you have a themed board * Don't get a terrible domain-name * Be prepared to hate the software if you decide to use wakaba. It's all in perl. Usually each imageboard will require its own copy of wakaba. ~Kujila | |
Kujila wrote:
A couple pointers: And on those two points, it'd probably be a good idea to save the IPs of who posted what. Good revenge for people posting child porn is the FBI busting through their front door (though I don't know how much the FBI'd care, but I'm sure enough images from one IP could get their attention). | |
Proxies are definitely a problem, but hopefully at least one of them would mess up and forget to proxy themselves... logging IP addresses is definitely worth trying.
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I'd like to say you all have good, valid points and because of that, I have talked to a friend to simply set up a whole new Image Board system for me. Here are notes for it, that will hopefully one day get done:
Image Board Design Theses are notes for a Image Board design. Image Boards can take up huge amounts of data a month, costing the host a huge amount of money. Because of that, it needs to be restricted to how much memory it uses and stop it before it goes over the monthly limit. Image board users tend to be stupid idiots as well, because of this, we need to try and filter out the trouble makers. Registration A lot of Image Boards encourages or even enforces anonymity on their boards. Some people argue, without having to register, you will get more users. But, more users are not always a good thing. When you allow every idiot on the internet on your Image Board, you are going to get a lot of Trolls. It is hard to keep the Trolls out when there is nothing standing in their way of posting on your Image Board. Unregistered users will be free to view the Image Board and read the forums. Unregistered users will not be able to see full views of any of the images posted on the Image Board, nor will they be allowed to upload images to the Image Board or reply to any of images on the Image Board. Also, they will not be allowed to respond to any threads on the forums. Users will be allowed to register for free and set up a account. When they register for a account they will be allowed to decide if they want to stay "anonymous" on the Image Board and Forums, or they will be free to use a user name. A user will have two names when they register, their "Login Name" and their "Handle". They use their "Login Name" to login to the website and their "Handle" is what they are represented by on the Image Board and Forums. All users must have a "Login Name" but are free to have a anonymous "Handle". A system should be put into place to try and discourage mailing lists or bots from signing up to the website. There should be a not only a question that asks if you are a Bot or not, but also a security word/number generated each time on the page to decide if the user is a valid user or not. Forums The Forums will be a seperate part of the Image Board. It will be a "no frills" image board with basic functions. When a thread gets too old, it is automatically deleted, unless a Mod decides to sticky the thread for whatever reason. Thread ages will be updated as long as there are people using the thread, so a thread will never get old as long as the thread is in use, thus never deleted. Image Board The Image Board is the center of the entire website. It will also be the largest use of memory on the server and be the most costly. The Image Board is where registered users will be allowed to upload images to the board for other users to view. The allowed images types are only .JPEG and .PNG, no other image types will be accepted. Further more, image files are not allowed to be more then 500KB in size. For posting image purposes, there will be another option to upload images called "Leeching" where a user can get an image link from another website or image board and steal the image and post it on the Image Board, thus saving on bandwidth for our own board and stealing it from another. There will be a allowed 50 images per page, 6 pages total on the Image Board. Once a old image is pushed off the last page, it will be deleted. There will also be a entire purge of all images every Sunday night at 12:00AM. This should be done automatically and require no assistance from any of the Mods. The Image Board should also keep track of the amount of bandwidth used from the images, if 80% or more of the bandwidth has been used, image posting will be locked until the next month. The Image Board is for images and because of that, no conversations will be allowed on the board. Users should only be given the option to upload a image and that is it. Users should go to the forums to have discussions. Due to Trolls online, images that violate the TOS of the Image Board could be posted. There isn't always going to be a Mod on hand to delete the thread or image, so users can "Sage" the image or thread. If the target in question is saged more then 3 times, the entire thread or image will be deleted. Moderation The Image Board and Forums are going to require moderation. Mods will be able to, at their own discretion, delete or modify any threads, posts or images posted. There are going to be user who have problems, but Mods don't need a ton of users trying to talk to them. Because of this, there should be a "Ticket" system on the website where users can file a complaint or comment with the Mods. They simply click if the ticket is a complaint or comment and then fill out a brief message. This "Ticket" will be sent to all the mods, who can at their own discretion, decide what they will do, if anything. Only the lead Mods should have the ability to delete a user account or ban them, their IP or a range of IP addresses. | |
Yeah but as long as you have a log on YOUR side you ought be ok... I mean, that's all you can really provide to the FBI is the IP's that you have logged.
When I reported folks to the FBI, they didn't ask for any IP's. I provided them all the info I had, got a call back asking for a bit more info, and then I didn't hear anything after that. ~Kujila | |
The community can't get any worse.