is there a federated platform similar to 4chan ie. topic boards with ephemeral linear message threads? i dunno how else to describe it but I like the 4chan format, it's just got the worst people in the world on there (which I figure could be mitigated by the federated server type thing)

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[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

ie. topic boards with ephemeral linear message threads

This describes a general forum format, but you might mean chan imageboards specifically. There have been federated imageboards for a while, but they're very niche and experimental and I don't see the value. The two examples I've heard of are NNTPchan (2015-present, NNTP protocol) and Fchannel (ActivityPub protocol).

There's the related imageboard webring, but there's no actual federated interaction between the boards, it's effectively just cross-advertising to allow easier discovery.