forum : Java Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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forum

A forum is like a old BBS Bulletin Board System, where people can post public messages on various topics, and everyone can get to read them and comment on them. Unlike newsgroups, forums are hosted on a single webserver. Forums have the following advantages over newsgroups:

messages can be formatted, with bold, italic, smileys etc.
somebody is in charge. They can boot out obnoxious people and remove spamming posts.
Typically there is far less quoting of previous messages. You can follow threads back by clicking.
You don’t have to talk your ISP into carrying it.

Forums have the following disadvantages:

The moderator can ban you if you say thing things he disgrees with, and you have no recourse. This means you will get less variety of opinions in a forum. Even when the moderator does not arbitrarily censor, contributors self-censor to avoid potential banishment.
The owner of the forum may destroy your lifetime of posting due to whim or error. Keep copies of your more brilliant posts to post elsewhere. I was quite surprised when RichardDawkins.net decided to ban me and delete all my many posts on many topics for “Attempting to belittle/deny the fate of millions of people.” whatever that means.
You have to be online to read or post.
It is harder to find them. There are master lists of newsgroups.
Google does not index them as well as newsgroups.

Like a forum, a blog is also hosted on a website. A forum is more formal, with clearly defined topics and threads. Forums are usually open on the public where blogs are often restricted to read/write by a few.

blog
InstantForum: ASP based, buggy
JForum
newsgroups
Opera Forums on the Opera browser
phpBB
Sun Forums on Java
vBulletin

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