Message Board FAQ/Info

Against my better judgement, I've implemented an imageboard-style message board for the site. This is a project I've been kinda dabbling on for a few months now in the background for fun, and goes back in concept to some of the systems I had implemented on the old glowbox.cc back in the early 2010s.

What is this for?

Well, in some webrings I follow, certain users have implemented "guestbooks" in the spirit of old web design trends. Some of these have been simple systems, while others have implemented comment threading and other nifty features like that. I decided to go one step further and just sorta write half and imageboard for my site lol.

In terms of topic, feel free to discuss anything topical for the site -- computers, cybersecurity, odd, indepedent and old websites, or even issues with this site itself. Again, this isn't really much of an effort in community building or whatever, but really just an overly complex guestbook.

Features

In basic, I'm aiming to implement basic user-facing features common on most Futaba-style imageboards. To that end, I'm not really looking to implement particular compatibility with any existing system, so for instance, this site isn't intended to be compatible with Vichan plugins, or scripts like Desu-Desu talk.

What is currently implemented, though, is the following:

User features

  • Tripcodes
    • Currently only unsecure tripcodes are implemented
    • For the unfamiliar, these are effectively a publically displayed hash that's used to prove persistent identity.
    • To use, in the "name" field, fill out your screen name, followed by "#" and then a password. E.g. "Jimmy#tk42shjd".
      • Your name will display like so, with the trip code hash displayed.
  • Greentext
    • This is supposed to be used to quote what another user has said.
      • Typing ">" will cause the rest of the line to render in green.
  • Inline reply linking
    • Typing ">>" followed by another post's number will generate a link that snaps you to that post.
    • This is to allow other users to know that you're replying to them.
    • This can be auto-populated into the reply message box by clicking a post's number.
    • Note that unlike on other popular imageboard platforms, you can only link within a thread.
      • OP cannot contain inline links
      • You cannot link to posts in other threads
  • Image posting
    • The bread and butter!
    • Top level posts require an image.
    • Images may be JPG, PNG or GIF up to 50mb in size

Note that for now, there are several features common on other imageboards that are not present here. This is mostly because I simply haven't implemented them yet.

  • You cannot delete your own posts. The system was originally designed to not have any way to track users, so this wwas originally not possible. This will be implemented soon.
  • You currently cannot provide a reason for reporting. This will likely be improved moving forward.
  • There is no support for Webm. I do not intend to implement this.
  • There is no catalogue system. I do not intend to implement this.
  • There aren't any enhanced text formatting tags, etc. This isn't something I plan to implement.

Administrative features

In addition to user features, the system contains several features to aid in administration and moderation.

  • Report system and queue
    • Users can report posts for rule violation
    • Reported posts appear in a moderation queue for triage by moderators.
  • IP based banning
    • Bans can be assigned for a day, week, month and year long periods
  • Post and image deletion
    • An absolute must!
  • pHash based image blacklisting.
    • Submitted images can have a perceptual hash generated and blacklisted
    • This is a system for preventing the reposting of unwanted material such as spam images, CSAM, etc.
  • Simple GD library based captcha system
  • Post count-up timer to prevent posters from trying to submit things too fast.
    • This is intended mostly to prevent pasting spam messages
    • This system will likely be adjusted once live use allows for baselining.

There are a few noteworthy features that are a bit atypical or even missing currently:

  • There is no way to assign a permanent ban from within the app.
    • This will likely not be implemented. IP addresses change frequently, so if there's a need to actually ban an address permanently, this is likely something that needs to be handled at the firewall level.
  • There is no application level authentication!
    • This is mostly laziness on my part, but the system is intended to be secured using BASIC AUTH or a similar AAA service that's configured through the web server itself.
  • Users cannot currently be unbanned through the app.
    • I'll probably implement this later
    • Currently, bans have to be removed manually through the MySQL console.
  • There is no system in place for wordfiltering, but this is something I'd like to work on.