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An Internet forum, or message board, is an
online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...
discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from
chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes publicly visible. Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; example: a single conversation is called a " thread", or ''topic''. A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread and can be replied to by as many people as so wish. Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently
log in In computer security, logging in (or logging on, signing in, or signing on) is the process by which an individual gains access to a computer system A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic o ...
to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.


History

The modern forum originated from bulletin boards, and so-called computer conferencing systems, and are a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technological standpoint, ''forums'' or ''boards'' are
web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
s managing
user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
. Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of an electronic mailing list or
newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...
(such as exist on
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
); allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic. Internet forums are prevalent in several
developed countries A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
. Japan posts the most with over two million per day on their largest forum, 2channel. China also has many millions of posts on forums such as
Tianya Club Tianya Club (Mandarin: Tiānyáshèqū 天涯社区 "End of the World" Club) is one of the most popular Internet forums in China. As of 2015, it is ranked by Alexa as the 11th most visited site in the People's Republic of China and 60th overall. I ...
. Some of the first forum systems were the Planet-Forum system, developed at the beginning of the 1970s, the EIES system, first operational in 1976, and the KOM system, first operational in 1977. One of the first forum sites (which is still active today) is Delphi Forums, once called
Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...
. The service, with four million members, dates to 1983. Forums perform a function similar to that of dial-up bulletin board systems and
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
networks that were first created starting in the late 1970s. Early web-based forums date back as far as 1994, with the WIT project from W3 Consortium and starting from this time, many alternatives were created. A sense of
virtual community A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...
often develops around forums that have regular users.
Technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
,
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s,
sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
s,
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
,
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
,
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, and
politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the Internet are abundant and widely used in Internet forums. Forum software packages are widely available on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
and are written in a variety of
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s, such as
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...
,
Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...
,
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in
text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operat ...
s or in a
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
. Each package offers different features, from the most basic, providing text-only postings, to more advanced packages, offering
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
support and formatting code (usually known as
BBCode BBCode ("Bulletin Board Code") is a lightweight markup language used to format messages in much Internet forum software, first introduced in 1998. The available "tags" of BBCode are usually indicated by square brackets ( _and_.html" ;"title="/code> ...
). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles. Several other web applications, such as
blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
software, also incorporate forum features.
WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...
comments at the bottom of a
blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
post allow for a single-threaded discussion of any given blog post. Slashcode, on the other hand, is far more complicated, allowing fully threaded discussions and incorporating a robust moderation and meta-moderation system as well as many of the profile features available to forum users. Some stand alone threads on forums have reached fame and notability such as the " I am lonely will anyone speak to me" thread on MovieCodec.com's forums, which was described as the "web's top hangout for lonely folk" by ''Wired'' magazine.


Structure

A forum consists of a tree-like directory structure. The top end is "Categories". A forum can be divided into categories for the relevant discussions. Under the categories are sub-forums and these sub-forums can further have more sub-forums. The ''topics'' (commonly called ''threads'') come under the lowest level of sub-forums and these are the places under which members can start their discussions or ''posts''. Logically forums are organized into a finite set of generic topics (usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as ''members'', and governed by a group known as ''moderators''. It can also have a graph structure. All message boards will use one of three possible display formats. Each of the three basic message board display formats: Non-Threaded/Semi-Threaded/Fully Threaded, has its own advantages and disadvantages. If messages are not related to one another at all, a Non-Threaded format is best. If a user has a message topic and multiple replies to that message topic, a semi-threaded format is best. If a user has a message topic and replies to that message topic and responds to replies, then a fully threaded format is best.


User groups

Internally, Western-style forums organize visitors and logged in members into user groups. Privileges and rights are given based on these groups. A user of the forum can automatically be promoted to a more privileged user group based on criteria set by the administrator. A person viewing a closed thread as a ''member'' will see a box saying he does not have the right to submit messages there, but a ''moderator'' will likely see the same box granting him access to more than just posting messages. An unregistered user of the site is commonly known as a ''guest'' or ''visitor''. Guests are typically granted access to all functions that do not require database alterations or breach privacy. A guest can usually view the contents of the forum or use such features as ''read marking'', but occasionally an administrator will disallow visitors to read their forum as an incentive to become a registered member.''read marking'' is the process through which a thread, post, or forum that has been viewed is distinguished from those that have not. The function is usually automatic with the addition of controls, like ''Mark All'' etc. A person who is a very frequent visitor of the forum, a section or even a thread is referred to as a
lurker In Internet culture, a lurker is typically a member of an online community who observes, but does not participate. The exact definition depends on context. Lurkers make up a large proportion of all users in online communities. Lurking allows use ...
and the habit is referred to as ''lurking''. Registered members often will refer to themselves as ''lurking'' in a particular location, which is to say they have no intention of participating in that section but enjoy reading the contributions to it.


Moderators

The ''moderators'' (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of ''moderating discussion'' (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and
spambot A spambot is a computer program designed to assist in the sending of spam. Spambots usually create accounts and send spam messages with them. Web hosts and website operators have responded by banning spammers, leading to an ongoing struggle betw ...
s etc.). Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, unbanning, suspending, unsuspending, warning the members, or adding, editing, and removing the polls of threads. "Junior modding", "backseat modding", or "forum copping" can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members. Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users. Moderators act as unpaid volunteers on many websites, which has sparked controversies and community tensions. On
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...
, some moderators have prominently expressed dissatisfaction with their unpaid labor being underappreciated, while other site users have accused moderators of abusing special access privileges to act as a "cabal" of "petty tyrants". On 4chan, moderators are subject to notable levels of mockery and contempt. There, they are often referred to as janitors (or, more pejoratively, "jannies") given their job of what is tantamount to cleaning up the imageboards' infamous
shitposting In Internet culture, shitposting, trashposting, or funposting is the act of using an online forum or social media page to post content that is satirical and of "aggressively, ironically, and trollishly poor quality", an online analog of trash t ...
.


Administrators

The ''administrators'' (short form: "admin") manage the technical details required for running the site. As such, they have the authority to appoint and revoke members as moderators, manage the rules, create sections and sub-sections, as well as perform any
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
operations ( database backup, etc.). Administrators often also act as moderators. Administrators may also make forum-wide announcements, or change the appearance (known as the skin) of a forum. There are also many forums where administrators share their knowledge.


Post

A ''post'' is a user-submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as blocks one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the TS (thread starter) or OP (original post). Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not uncommon for discussions to be derailed. On Western forums, the classic way to show a member's own details (such as name and avatar) has been on the left side of the post, in a narrow column of fixed width, with the post controls located on the right, at the bottom of the main body, above the signature block. In more recent forum software implementations, the Asian style of displaying the members' details above the post has been copied. Posts have an internal limit usually measured in characters. Often one is required to have a message with a minimum length of 10 characters. There is always an upper limit but it is rarely reached – most boards have it at either 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 characters. Most forums keep track of a user's postcount. The postcount is a measurement of how many posts a certain user has made. Users with higher postcounts are often considered more reputable than users with lower postcounts, but not always. For instance, some forums have disabled postcounts with the hopes that doing so will emphasize the quality of information over quantity.


Thread

A ''thread'' (sometimes called a ''topic'') is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to latest, although this is typically configurable: Options for newest to oldest and for a threaded view (a tree-like view applying logical reply structure before chronological order) can be available. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarize the intended discussion, and an opening or original post (common abbreviation OP, which can also be used to refer to the original poster), which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever announcement the poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same members, even if they are one after the other.


Bumping

A thread is contained in a forum and may have an associated date that is taken as the date of the last post (options to order threads by other criteria are generally available). When a member posts in a thread it will jump to the top since it is the latest updated thread. Similarly, other threads will jump in front of it when they receive posts. When a member posts in a thread for no reason but to have it go to the top, it is referred to as a ''bump'' or ''bumping''. It has been suggested that "bump" is an acronym of "bring up my post"; however, this is almost certainly a
backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
and the usage is entirely consistent with the verb "bump" which means "to knock to a new position". On some messageboards, users can choose to ''sage'' (correctly pronounced though often confused as ) a post if they wish to make a post, but not "bump" it. The word "sage" derives from the 2channel terminology 下げる ''sageru'', meaning "to lower".


Stickying

Threads that are important but rarely receive posts are ''sticky''ed (or, in some software, "pinned"). A ''sticky thread'' will always appear in front of normal threads, often in its own section. A "threaded discussion group" is simply any group of individuals who use a forum for threaded, or asynchronous, discussion purposes. The group may or may not be the only users of the forum. A thread's popularity is measured on forums in reply (total posts minus one, the opening post, in most default forum settings) counts. Some forums also track
page views In web analytics and website management, a pageview or page view, abbreviated in business to PV and occasionally called page impression, is a request to load a single HTML file ( web page) of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web, a page request ...
. Threads meeting a set number of posts or a set number of views may receive a designation such as "hot thread" and be displayed with a different icon compared to other threads. This icon may stand out more to emphasize the thread. If the forum's users have lost interest in a particular thread, it becomes a ''dead thread''.


Discussion

Forums prefer a premise of open and free discussion and often adopt
de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally " in fact"), here meaning "in practice b ...
s. Most common topics on forums include questions, comparisons, polls of opinion, as well as debates. It is not uncommon for nonsense or unsocial behavior to sprout as people lose temper, especially if the topic is controversial. Poor understanding of differences in values of the participants is a common problem on forums. Because replies to a topic are often worded aimed at someone's point of view, discussion will usually go slightly off into several directions as people question each other's validity, sources and so on. Circular discussion and ambiguity in replies can extend for several tens of posts of a thread eventually ending when everyone gives up or attention spans waver and a more interesting subject takes over. It is not uncommon for debate to end in ad hominem attacks.


Liabilities of owners and moderators

Several
lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
s have been brought against the forums and moderators claiming libel and damage. A recent case is the Scubaboard lawsuit where a business in the Maldives filed a suit against Scubaboard for libel and defamation in January 2010. For the most part, though, forum owners and moderators in the United States are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that " provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In 2019,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
was faced with a
class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
lawsuit set forth by moderators diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats o ...
. It was settled for $52 million the following year.


Common features

By default to be an Internet forum, the web application needs an ability to submit threads and replies. Typically, threads are in newer to older view, and replies in older to newer view.


Tripcodes and capcodes

Most imageboards and 2channel-style discussion boards allow (and encourage) anonymous posting and use a system of tripcodes instead of registration. A tripcode is the hashed result of a password that allows one's identity to be recognized without storing any data about users. In a tripcode system, a secret password is added to the user's name following a separator character (often a
number sign The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviati ...
). This password, or tripcode, is hashed into a special key, or trip, distinguishable from the name by HTML styles. Tripcodes cannot be faked but on some types of forum software they are insecure and can be guessed. On other types, they can be brute forced with software designed to search for tripcodes such as Tripcode Explorer. Moderators and administrators will frequently assign themselves capcodes, or tripcodes where the guessable trip is replaced with a special notice (such as "# Administrator"), or cap.


Private message

A ''private message'', or PM for short, is a message sent in private from a member to one or more other members. The ability to send so-called blind carbon copies is sometimes available. When sending a ''blind carbon copy'' (bcc), the users to whom the message is sent directly will not be aware of the recipients of the blind carbon copy or even if one was sent in the first place.Presuming someone is sending a
private message In computing, a private message, personal message, or direct message (abbreviated as PM or DM) refers to a private communication sent or received by a user of a private communication channel on any given platform. Unlike public posts, PMs are only ...
and has the ability to send blind carbon copies: If someone fills the ''recipient'' field with "John" and "Tom", and the ''blind carbon copy'' field with "Gordon". John will know Tom got the message. Tom knows John got the message. But, both Tom and John have no clue that Gordon got the message as well.
Private messages are generally used for personal conversations. They can also be used with tripcodes—a message is addressed to a public trip and can be picked up by typing in the tripcode.


Attachment

An attachment can be almost any file. When someone attaches a file to a person's post they are uploading that particular file to the forum's server. Forums usually have very strict limit on what can be attached and what cannot be (among which the size of the files in question). Attachments can be part of a thread, social group, etc.,


BBCode and HTML

HyperText Markup Language The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript ...
(HTML) is sometimes allowed but usually its use is discouraged or when allowed, it is extensively filtered. Modern bulletin board systems often will have it disabled altogether or allow only administrators use it, as allowing it on any normal user level is considered a security risk due to a high rate of XSS vulnerabilities. When HTML is disabled Bulletin Board Code (BBCode) is the most common preferred alternative. BBCode usually consists of a tag, similar to HTML only instead of < and > the tagname is enclosed within square brackets (meaning: /code> and /code>). Commonly /code> is used for
italic type In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed ...
, /code> is used for bold, /code> for
underline An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on manuscript or typescript as ...
, olor="value"/code> for color and
ist Ist or IST may refer to: Information Science and Technology * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Information Science and Technology * Graduate School / Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Japan * Graduate School ...
/code> for lists, as well as mg/code> for images and rl/code> for links. The following example BBCode: his bis lever i ext i b/code> when the post is viewed the code is rendered to HTML and will appear as: This is ''clever'' ''text''. Many forum packages offer a way to create Custom BBCodes, or BBcodes that are not built into the package, where the administrator of the board can create complex BBCodes to allow the use of JavaScript or iframe functions in posts, for example embedding a YouTube or Google Video complete with viewer directly into a post.


Emoticon

An
emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, ...
or ''smiley'' is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form. Forums implement a system through which some of the text representations of an emoticons (e.g. xD, :p) are rendered as a small image. Depending on what part of the world the forum's topic originates (since most forums are international) smilies can be replaced by other forms of similar graphics, an example would be kaoani (e.g. *(^O^)*, (^-^)b), or even text between special symbols (e.g. :blink:, :idea:).


Poll

Most forums implement an
opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinion ...
system for threads. Most implementations allow for single-choice or multi-choice (sometimes limited to a certain number) when selecting options as well as private or public display of voters. Polls can be set to expire after a certain date or in some cases after a number of days from its creation. Members vote in a poll and a statistic is displayed graphically.


RSS and ATOM

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
and
ATOM Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, ...
feeds allow a minimalistic means of subscribing to the forum. Common implementations allow RSS feeds to list only the last few threads updated for the forum index and the last posts in a thread.


Other features

An ''ignore list'' allows members to hide posts of other members that they do not want to see or have a problem with. In most implementations, they are referred to as ''foe list'' or ''ignore list''. The posts are usually not hidden, but minimized with only a small bar indicating a post from the user on the ''ignore list'' is there. Almost all Internet forums include a ''member list'', which allows display of all forum members, with an integrated search feature. Some forums will not list members with 0 posts, even if they have activated their accounts. Many forums allow users to give themselves an ''avatar''. An avatar is an image that appears beside all of a user's posts, in order to make the user more recognizable. The user may upload the image to the forum database or may provide a link to an image on a separate website. Each forum has limits on the height, width, and data size of avatars that may be used; if the user tries to use an avatar that is too big, it may be scaled down or rejected. Similarly, most forums allow users to define a ''signature'' (sometimes called a ''sig''), which is a block of text, possibly with BBCode, which appears at the bottom of all of the user's posts. There is a character limit on signatures, though it may be so high that it is rarely hit. Often the forum's moderators impose manual rules on signatures to prevent them from being obnoxious (for example, being extremely long or having flashing images), and issue warnings or bans to users who break these rules. Like avatars, signatures may improve the recognizability of a poster. They may also allow the user to attach information to all of their posts, such as proclaiming support for a cause, noting facts about themselves, or quoting humorous things that have previously been said on the forum. Common on forums, a ''subscription'' is a form of automated notification integrated into the software of most forums. It usually notifies either by email or on the site when the member returns. The option to subscribe is available for every thread while logged in. Subscriptions work with ''read marking'', namely the property of ''unread'', which is given to the content never served to the user by the software. Recent development in some popular implementations of forum software has brought ''social network features and functionality''. Such features include personal galleries, pages as well as a social network like chat systems. Most forum software is now fully customizable with "hacks" or "modifications" readily available to customize a person's forum to theirs and their members' needs. Often forums use "
cookies A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chi ...
", or information about the user's behavior on the site sent to a user's browser and used upon re-entry into the site. This is done to facilitate automatic login and to show a user whether a thread or forum has received new posts since his or her last visit. These may be disabled or cleared at any time.


Rules and policies

Forums are governed by a set of individuals, collectively referred to as ''staff'', made up of ''administrators'' and ''moderators'', which are responsible for the forums' conception, technical maintenance, and policies (creation and enforcing). Most forums have a list of rules detailing the wishes, aim, and guidelines of the forums' creators. There is usually also a FAQ section containing basic information for new members and people not yet familiar with the use and principles of a forum (generally tailored for specific forum software). Rules on forums usually apply to the entire user body and often have preset exceptions, most commonly designating a section as an exception. For example, in an IT forum any discussion regarding anything but computer
programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
may be against the rules, with the exception of a ''general chat'' section. Forum rules are maintained and enforced by the moderation team, but users are allowed to help out via what is known as a report system. Most Western forum platforms automatically provide such a system. It consists of a small function applicable to each post (including one's own). Using it will notify all currently available moderators of its location, and subsequent action or judgment can be carried out immediately, which is particularly desirable in large or very developed boards. Generally, moderators encourage members to also use the ''private message'' system if they wish to report behavior. Moderators will generally frown upon attempts of moderation by non-moderators, especially when the would-be moderators do not even issue a report. Messages from non-moderators acting as moderators generally declare a post as against the rules or predict punishment. While not harmful, statements that attempt to enforce the rules are discouraged. When rules are broken several steps are commonly taken. First, a warning is usually given; this is commonly in the form of a ''private message'' but recent development has made it possible for it to be integrated into the software. Subsequent to this, if the act is ignored and warnings do not work, the member is – usually – first exiled from the forum for a number of days. Denying someone access to the site is called a ''ban''. Bans can mean the person can no longer log in or even view the site anymore. If the offender, after the warning sentence, repeats the offense, another ban is given, usually this time a longer one. Continuous harassment of the site eventually leads to a permanent ban. In most cases, this means simply that the account is locked. In extreme cases where the offender – after being permanently banned – creates another account and continues to harass the site, administrators will apply an
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
ban or block (this can also be applied at the server level): If the IP address is static, the machine of the offender is prevented from accessing the site. In some extreme circumstances, IP address range bans or country bans can be applied; this is usually for political, licensing, or other reasons. See also: Block (Internet),
IP address blocking IP address blocking, or IP banning, is a configuration of a network service that blocks requests from hosts with certain IP addresses. IP address blocking is commonly used to protect against brute force attacks and to prevent access by a disrup ...
, and
Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Int ...
. Offending content is usually deleted. Sometimes if the topic is considered the source of the problem, it is ''locked''; often a poster may request a topic expected to draw problems to be locked as well, although the moderators decide whether to grant it. In a ''locked thread'', members cannot post anymore. In cases where the topic is considered a breach of rules it – with all of its posts – may be deleted.


Troll

Forum ''trolls'' are users that repeatedly and deliberately breach the
netiquette Etiquette in technology, colloquially referred to as netiquette is a term used to refer to the unofficial code of policies that encourage good behavior on the Internet which is used to regulate respect and polite behavior on social media platforms ...
of an established online community, posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages to bait or excite users into responding or to test the forum rules and policies, and with that the patience of the forum staff. Their provocative behavior may potentially start
flame wars Flaming or roasting is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. This term should not be confused with the term trolling, which is the act of someone going online, or in person, and causing ...
(see below) or other disturbances. Responding to a troll's provocations is commonly known as 'feeding the troll' and is generally discouraged, as it can encourage their disruptive behavior.


Sock puppet

The term sock puppet refers to multiple pseudonyms in use by the same person on a particular message board or forum. The analogy of a sock puppet is of a puppeteer holding up both hands and supplying dialogue to both puppets simultaneously. A typical use of a sockpuppet account is to agree with or debate another sockpuppet account belonging to the same person, for the purposes of reinforcing the puppeteer's position in an argument. Sock puppets are usually found when an IP address check is done on the accounts in forums.


Spamming

Forum spamming is a breach of netiquette where users repeat the same word or phrase over and over, but differs from multiple posting in that spamming is usually a willful act that sometimes has malicious intent. This is a common trolling technique. It can also be traditional spam, unpaid advertisements that are in breach of the forum's rules. Spammers utilize a number of illicit techniques to post their spam, including the use of
botnets A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conn ...
. Some forums consider concise, comment-oriented posts spam, for example ''Thank you'', ''Cool'' or ''I love it''.


Double posting

One common faux pas on Internet forums is to post the same message twice. Users sometimes post versions of a message that are only slightly different, especially in forums where they are not allowed to edit their earlier posts. Multiple posting instead of editing prior posts can artificially inflate a user's post count. Multiple posting can be unintentional; a user's browser might display an error message even though the post has been transmitted or a user of a slow forum might become impatient and repeatedly hit the submit button. An offline editor may post the same message twice. Multiple posting can also be used as a method of
trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the i ...
or spreading
forum spam Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses * Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...
. A user may also send the same post to several forums, which is termed
crossposting Crossposting is the act of posting the same message to multiple information channels; forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. This is distinct from multiposting, which is the posting of separate identical messages, individually, to each channel, ( ...
. The term derives from
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
, where crossposting was an accepted practice but causes problems in web forums, which lack the ability to link such posts so replies in one forum are not visible to people reading the post in other forums.


Necroposting

A necropost is a message that revives (as in
necromancy Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future even ...
) an arbitrarily old thread, causing it to appear above newer and more active threads. This practice is generally seen as a breach of netiquette on most forums. Because old threads are not usually locked from further posting, necroposting is common for newer users and in cases where the date of previous posts is not apparent.


Word censor

A word censoring system is commonly included in the forum software package. The system will pick up words in the body of the post or some other user-editable forum element (like user titles), and if they partially match a certain keyword (commonly no
case sensitivity In computers, case sensitivity defines whether uppercase and lowercase letters are treated as distinct (case-sensitive) or equivalent (case-insensitive). For instance, when users interested in learning about dogs search an e-book, "dog" and "Dog" a ...
) they will be censored. The most common censoring is letter replacement with an asterisk character. For example, in the user title, it is deemed inappropriate for users to use words such as "admin", "moderator", "leader" and so on. If the censoring system is implemented, a title such as "forum leader" may be filtered to "forum ******". Rude or vulgar words are common targets for the censoring system. But such auto-censors can make mistakes, for example censoring " wristwatch" to "wris****ch" and " Scunthorpe" to "S****horpe."


Flame wars

When a thread—or in some cases, an entire forum—becomes unstable, the result is usually uncontrolled spam in the form of one-line complaints, image macros, or abuse of the report system. When the discussion becomes heated and sides do nothing more than complain and not accept each other's differences in point of view, the discussion degenerates into what is called a ''flame war''. To ''flame'' someone means to go off-topic and attack the person rather than their opinion. Likely candidates for flame wars are usually religion and socio-political topics, or topics that discuss pre-existing rivalries outside the forum (e.g., rivalry between games, console systems, car manufacturers, nationalities, etc.). When a topic that has degenerated into a flame war is considered akin to that of the forum (be it a section or the entire board), spam and flames have a chance of spreading outside the topic and causing trouble, usually in the form of vandalism. Some forums (commonly game forums) have suffered from forum-wide flame wars almost immediately after their conception, because of a pre-existing ''
flame war Flaming or roasting is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. This term should not be confused with the term trolling, which is the act of someone going online, or in person, and causing ...
element'' in the
online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
. Many forums have created devoted areas strictly for discussion of potential flame war topics that are moderated like normal.


Registration or anonymity

Many Internet forums require registration to post. Registered users of the site are referred to as ''members'' and are allowed to submit or send electronic messages through the
web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
. The process of registration involves verification of one's age (typically age 13 and over is required so as to meet COPPA requirements of American forum software) followed by a declaration of the terms of service (other documents may also be present) and a request for agreement to said terms. Subsequently, if all goes well, the candidate is presented with a
web form A webform, web form or HTML form on a web page allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. Forms can resemble paper or database forms because web users fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields. ...
to fill requesting at the very least a
username A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), accoun ...
(an alias), password, email and validation of a
CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. The term was coined in 2003 b ...
code. While simply completing the registration
web form A webform, web form or HTML form on a web page allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. Forms can resemble paper or database forms because web users fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields. ...
is in general enough to generate an account,an account is a space on the site identified by the chosen username through which a member carries out activities and contributes. the status label ''Inactive'' is commonly provided by default until the registered user confirms the email address given while registering indeed belongs to the user. Until that time, the registered user can log in to the new account but may not
post Post or POST commonly refers to: *Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries **An Post, the Irish national postal service **Canada Post, Canadian postal service **Deutsche Post, German postal service **Iraqi Post, Ira ...
, reply, or send private messages in the forum. Sometimes a ''referrer system'' is implemented. A ''referrer'' is someone who introduced or otherwise "helped someone" with the decision to join the site (likewise, how a
HTTP referrer In HTTP, "" (a misspelling of Referrer) is an optional HTTP header field that identifies the address of the web page (i.e., the URI or IRI), from which the resource has been requested. By checking the referrer, the server providing the new web ...
is the site who linked one to another site). Usually, referrers are other forum members and members are usually rewarded for referrals. The referrer system is also sometimes implemented so that, if a visitor visits the forum through a link such as referrerid=300, the user with the id number (in this example, 300) would receive referral credit if the visitor registers. The purpose is commonly just to give credit (sometimes rewards are implied) to those who help the community grow. In areas such as
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, registration is frequently optional and anonymity is sometimes even encouraged. On these forums, a
tripcode An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...
system may be used to allow verification of an
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
without the need for formal registration. People who regularly read the forum discussions but do not register or do not post are often referred to as "lurkers".


Comparison with other web applications

Electronic mailing lists: The main difference between forums and electronic mailing lists is that mailing lists automatically deliver new messages to the subscriber, while forums require the reader to visit the website and check for new posts. Because members may miss replies in threads they are interested in, many modern forums offer an "e-mail notification" feature, whereby members can choose to be notified of new posts in a thread, and
web feed On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
s that allow members to see a summary of the new posts using aggregator software. There are also software products that combine forum and mailing list features, i.e. posting and reading via email as well as the browser depending on the member's choice. Newsreader: The main difference between newsgroups and forums is that additional software, a News client, is required to participate in newsgroups whereas using a forum requires no additional software beyond the
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
.
Shoutbox A shoutbox, saybox, tagboard, chatterbox or chat box is a chat-like feature of some websites that allows people to quickly leave messages on the website, generally without any form of user registration. In their simplest form, shoutboxes are sim ...
es: Unlike Internet forums, most shoutboxes do not require registration, only requiring an email address from the user. Additionally, shoutboxes are not heavily moderated, unlike most message boards.
Wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
: Unlike conventional forums, the original wikis allowed all users to edit all content (including each other's messages). This level of content manipulation is reserved for moderators or administrators on most forums. Wikis also allow the creation of other content outside the
talk page MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for Media ...
s. On the other hand,
weblogs Weblogs may refer to: *Plural of Blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically dis ...
and generic content management systems tend to be locked down to the point where only a few select users can post blog entries, although many allow other users to comment upon them. The Wiki hosting site known as
Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...
has two features in operation, known as the Forum and Message Wall. The forum is used solely for discussion and works through editing, while the message wall works through posted messages more similar to a traditional forum.
Chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
s and
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
: Forums differ from chats and instant messaging in that forum participants do not have to be online simultaneously to receive or send messages. Messages posted to a forum are publicly available for some time even if the forum or thread is closed, which is uncommon in chat rooms that maintain frequent activity. One rarity among forums is the ability to create a picture album. Forum participants may upload personal pictures onto the site and add descriptions to the pictures. Pictures may be in the same format as posting threads, and contain the same options such as "Report Post" and "Reply to Post".


See also

*
Comparison of Internet forum software This article outlines the general features commonly found in various Internet forum software packages. It highlights major features that the manager of a forum might want and should expect to be commonly available in different forum software. Thes ...
*
Godwin's Law Godwin's law, short for Godwin's law (or rule) of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1. P ...
*
Internet social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...
*
List of Internet forums An Internet forum, or ''message board'', is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. Forums act as centralized locations for topical discussion. The Forum format is derived from BBS and Usen ...
* Warnock's dilemma * Thread * Process scheduling Resources *
phpBB phpBB is an Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of ''PHP Bulletin Board''. Available under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free and open-source. Features of phpBB include ...
( open-source code copyrighted platform) *
Open directory project DMOZ (from ''directory.mozilla.org'', an earlier domain name, stylized in lowercase in its logo) was a multilingual open-content directory of World Wide Web links. The site and community who maintained it were also known as the Open Directory ...
(multi-platform
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
-based open-standard content directory *
Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of Process (computing), processes and Windows service, services. Initially, Active D ...
(Microsoft-proprietary
single sign-on Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems. True single sign-on allows the user to log in once and access services without re-enterin ...
,
access Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...
, remote and
domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...
control service)


Notes


Examples


References


External links


Archived copy of Forum Software Reviews timeline

Delphi Forums


{{DEFAULTSORT:Internet Forum Groupware
Forum Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses * Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...
Social information processing