Editing Internet forum (section)

{{Short description|Website for online discussions}}
[[File:Phpbb 3.0 prosilver.png|thumb|right|300px|An Internet forum powered by [[phpBB]]]]
[[File:FUDforum.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[FUDforum]], another Internet forum software package]]
[[File:WikipediaVillagePump2025.png|thumb|Wikipedia's Internet Forum, The Wikipedia Village Pump, as of 2025.]]
An '''Internet forum''', or '''message board''', is an '''online discussion platform''' where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.<ref name="vBfaqFORUM">{{cite web |title=vBulletin Community Forum - FAQ: What is a bulletin board?|url=http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_board_usage#faq_vb3_forums_threads_posts |publisher=vBulletin.com |quote=A bulletin board is an online discussion site. It is sometimes also called a 'board' or 'forum'. It may contain several categories, consisting of sub-forums, threads and individual posts. |access-date=2008-09-01 |archive-date=2012-11-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121115211910/https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_board_usage#faq_vb3_forums_threads_posts |url-status=live}}</ref> They differ from [[chat room]]s 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; for example, a single conversation is called a "[[#Thread|thread]]", or ''topic''. The name comes from the [[Forum (Roman)|forums]] of Ancient Rome.

A discussion forum is hierarchical or 
[[Tree (data structure)|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 they so wish.

Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently [[login|log in]] to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.