icycalm wrote:Can someone explain to me why these threads seem to disappear after a certain amount of time? I guess it happens automatically?
The boards usually have a limited number of threads that can be displayed at a time, organized across, say, ten pages. When new posts are made in an old thread, the thread gets bumped up, like in a regular forum. But if nobody posts in a thread while new threads are constantly being made, the thread falls down to the last page and is eventually wiped.
There's a couple of other ways for a thread to get deleted. Mods, naturally, will remove threads they find annoying, meaning that occasionally a perfectly good thread will vanish completely. Also, when a thread reaches a certain number of posts, it no longer gets bumped up.
icycalm wrote: And why would anyone want to post on such a board?
There's a few reasons. For one thing, these boards don't require a signup. Usernames are optional, and postcounts, signatures, and avatars don't exist. On a board like this, the things you say are judged exclusively for what they are, as people don't build up "reputations". Obviously this also gives people an excuse to act like morons (got banned? Just switch you IP address), but it's not uncommon to have a real discussion, either.
Which brings me to the most important point. These boards move incredibly fast. You can have a discussion over the course of an hour that, on a regular forum, would take weeks. Not to mention shitty threads are a lot easier to ignore when they'll be gone in less than an hour. It's really easy to find people to play online games with, too, just set up a thread.
There's qualities to imageboard format, but whether they outweigh the glaring flaws is a matter of opinion.