8chan was basically the perfect website in that it combined the anonimity of 4chan with the community creation aspect of Reddit, it would be nice to see this feature implemented here.
5 posts omitted.Open board creation 8chan style is a bad idea, but I think that "devolved boards" (boards which are run semi-autonomously from the main site, conditional on achieving a certain agreed activity level and meeting other requirements.) would be an interesting idea.
e.g. say I volunteer to run a new board called /history/. I'd be the admin/moderator of that board, with the rules being a mix of global rules, rules agreed with the modocracy and rules that I set autonomously. /history/ may not be an explicitly leftist board, although obviously if it turned into an anticommunist shithole it could just be yoinked. (Power devolved is power retained…)
Board access would be subject to negotiating certain conditions - for example, to make a case that the board is a viable one, to agree to actually moderate the board, to ensure other mods are in place when I'm unavailable, and to encourage a certain level of activity on the board. e.g. I'd have to perform outreach and bring in new people to post there. (This is the advantage for the main site - come for /history/ and stay for /leftypol/)
If, in say a year, /history/ was pulling in 5 PPH and was trucking along fine, I could continue running the board - and if the board is dead and full of bait and junk posts, you shut it down and we move on. If, unexpectedly, the board is a massive success with 1000PPH, eclipsing /leftypol/ and quickly bankrupting the site, you encourage me to spin it off into a new website and retain a link in the header GETchan style.