I think the closest thing to Usenet is Japanese 2channel (now 5channel) web forum. [1] - text only - lots of subboards about every interest imaginable - bare

I think the closest thing to Usenet is Japanese 2channel (now 5channel) web forum. [1] - text only - lots of subboards about every interest imaginable - barely, or completely unmoderated (therefore full of spam and troll posts) - similar reply conventions - the web interface is so barebones that most users are using external desktop/mobile applications to read and post on it - ASCII/character art is widespread [1] http://5ch.net/ http://5ch.net/