World4ch was an English bulletin board website that originally launched around 2004 and later became a subsection of 4chan. It wasn't really active and the textboards were mostly ignored in favor of the imageboards, so it eventually shut down around April 7, 2014.¹⁾

In January 2004, Poole tried to set up text boards using the “0ch” script, but had trouble setting it up.²⁾³⁾ He eventually got it to work, creating two boards for testing,⁴⁾ but hated working with it and wanted a different script.⁵⁾ That's when “Shii” found and wrote the PHP script, “Shiichan”, that Poole adopted.⁶⁾ The news posts mention a “Suggestions” (/sug/) board and calls them “discussion” boards a few times.^{7)8)9)10)11)12)}

The last bit of news mentioned old threads being brought over,¹³⁾ though it seems like the board order had changed since then. “Shii” allegedly tried to add a 4-ch link, but Poole reverted it,¹⁴⁾ then “Shii” silently left Team 4chan and put “MrVacBob” in charge of its code. From there, World4ch lasted until April 7, 2014 once Poole deemed the project neglected, putting it in read-only mode¹⁵⁾ before deleting it altogether.

• /anime/ - Anime & Manga
• /book/ - Books
• /carcom/ - Comics & Cartoons
• /comp/ - Computers
• /food/ - Food
• /games/ - Video Games
• /img/ - Imageboard Discussion
• /lang/ - Foreign Language
• /lounge/ - Lounge
• /music/ - Music
• /newnew/ - World News
• /newpol/ - Politics
• /prog/ - Programming
• /sci/ - Science & Math
• /sjis/ - SJIS Room
• /sports/ - Sports
• /tech/ - Technology
• /tele/ - Television & Film
• /vip/ - News for VIP

• The boards used to be hosted on “world4ch.org” before moving to “dis.4chan.org” in 2006.¹⁶⁾
• Poole used “discussion boards” when talking about textboards. This was a poor decision since users could also hold discussions on 4chan's imageboards as well, though with some annoyances.
• World4ch was mostly tucked away in 4chan's front page and frames view. In retrospect, people could only find a textboard was though their respective imageboard counterpart's board subtitle.
• The popularity of 2channel's /news4vip/ board at the time had inspired a few things on World4ch:
  • When a post was submitted, a “That post was VIP QUALITY!” message would appear momentarily. This is a reference to the short-lived “VIP QUALITY” (VIPクオリティ) catchphrase on /news4vip/.
  • World4ch made a /vip/ board, but it was nothing like /news4vip/ since it only had garbage threads, was never topical, and mostly felt like a neutered version of 4chan's “old /b/” or /s4s/ board.
    • The only notable /vip/ thread is a thread where “JEWS” was constantly spammed.
    • 4chan remade the /vip/ board on October 4, 2016,¹⁷⁾ but this /vip/ was an imageboard and only “VIP” in the sense that only “4chan Pass” users could post, similar to 2channel's /be/.
• The most notable boards of World4ch were /vip/ and /prog/. The /vip/ users sorta have the Secret Area of VIP Quality, but there are multiple /prog/ boards following the death of /prog/rider.
• On /anime/, there was an active “Anime Appreciation Thread”, but the thread's fate remains a mystery.

• World2ch - A precursor to World4ch that inspired World4ch in name only.
• 2ch Embassy (World8ch) - A successor to World4ch, established by 8chan and hosted on 2channel.

• World4ch Archive - Hosted on Tinychan. You can sorta post on it, but it's probably pointless.
  • World4search - Search tool. Usability may vary.