What are Online Forums on a Website?

An online forum is an organized digital space dedicated to conversation & discussion between people on various topics & interests.

What are Online Forums on a Website?

An online forum is an organized digital space dedicated to conversation, usually through the publication of questions, answers and comments.

Online forums

don't usually take place in real time. A message board, or Internet forum, is an online discussion platform where people can engage in conversations through posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages usually have more than one line of text and are archived at least temporarily.

In addition, depending on the user's access level or forum settings, a moderator may need to approve a posted message before it becomes publicly visible. A website that provides an online exchange of information between people on a particular topic. It provides a space for questions and answers and can be monitored to maintain appropriate content. Also referred to as a discussion board or discussion group, an Internet forum is similar to an Internet newsgroup (see below), but you use your web browser to access it.

Before the Web, text-only forums were common on bulletin boards and proprietary online services. However, Internet forums include all the extras that people expect from the Web, such as images, videos, downloads and links, and sometimes work as a mini-portal on the subject. An online forum is an online space where people can hold discussions. It differs from a chat room in that it allows conversations to develop over time, rather than messages coming and going in quick succession.

And unlike social media sites, an online discussion forum generally focuses on a particular topic, brand, or fandom. An Internet forum is a discussion area on a website. Members of the website can post discussions and read and reply to the posts of other forum members. A forum can focus on almost any topic and a sense of online community, or virtual community, tends to form among forum members.

They're like message boards, but they have rules and moderation and are usually more focused on a single topic. Forums are considered to be one of the oldest forms of online communication. In the days of telephone access, online message boards were where people came to ask questions and get advice from other people. Nowadays, people use them to talk about almost anything. There are Internet forums for just about anything you can imagine, such as sports, hobbies, and even politics.

Creating a thriving forum requires work, so in the strategy phase, think about what tactics you'll use to attract members and keep them coming back. Possible candidates for flame wars are usually religious and sociopolitical topics, or topics that discuss pre-existing rivalries outside the forum (p. The term sock puppet refers to several pseudonyms used by the same person on a particular message board or forum. Depending on where in the world the forum topic originates (since most forums are international), emoticons can be replaced by other forms of similar graphics, an example would be kaoani (e. The forums are governed by a group of people, collectively referred to as staff, composed of administrators and moderators who are responsible for the design, technical maintenance and policies of the forums (creation and implementation).

From philosophical reflections on life to practical questions about how to complete a specific task, online forums are a place where members can pose the questions they have to a group of people who are likely to have a good answer. The moderation team maintains and enforces the forum rules but users can help through what is known as a reporting system. Online collaboration has many advantages and can help bring out the creative aspects of active team members or other members as they can work more together and come up with new ideas. If you create an open forum about an industry or hobby, people will come together based on their shared interest in those areas. And at the beginning those categories will also tell members what the forum is about and can help inspire the first questions and discussions that start. The user can upload the image to the forum database or can provide a link to an image on a separate website. The system will collect words in the body of the post or any other element of the forum that the user can edit (such as user titles) and if they partially match certain keywords (usually not case sensitive) they will be censored.

If you think it's the right option create a well-thought-out plan to launch your forum. Once the forum starts you're likely to expand your initial list of categories so you don't get stuck with what comes to mind now. Many forum packages offer a way to create custom BB codes or BB codes that are not integrated into the package while the forum administrator can create complex BB codes to allow for using JavaScript or iframe functions in posts for example by embedding a complete YouTube or Google video with its viewer directly in a publication.

Allen Craiger
Allen Craiger

Incurable food advocate. Devoted web guru. Freelance analyst. Avid twitter expert. Hardcore internet ninja. Typical webaholic.