What is an Online Forum?
An online forum, or internet forum, is a discussion board on a website where participants can read posts by members and post responses of their own. In most cases, registration is required to post on the discussion board. All members can post new topics and respond to all other members’ posts.
Members agree to a certain code of conduct when they register. It’s understood they will not be abusive to fellow members or use inappropriate language. A moderator can delete posts, entire threads or ban members who are found to be in violation of the forum’s code of conduct.
Online Forums: History
The first online bulletin boards were developed by Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss in 1978, who called it the Computerized Bulletin Board System (BBS). This type of bulletin board was used until the 1990s when Usenet became popular. Users would subscribe to newsgroups dedicated to topics that interested them. Participants reply to a thread, and their response is shared with all the other participants in the newsgroup. Usenet is still being used today. There are a number of search engines; Binsearch is one example that is free to try. Read more at https://chatbanter.com/
The first dedicated software for discussion forums was developed in 1994 by the W3 Consortium. Since that time, there have been many other software programs developed for online forums. They continue to be very popular, with some forums having thousands of members.
