The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition

What You Need to Know

A forum is a website application that manages and provides a medium for ongoing online community discussion on a particular subject (see Figure 5.1). The users are a group of contributors or members, along with a moderator, who participate in the conversation. The moderator monitors the conversation to be sure that it adheres to rules and regulations set up by the forum owner(s). A member can begin a topic, which will allow others to comment on and add discussion to the previous posts or comments. This two-way communication is called a thread. In most forums, participants are required to register and sign in to participate in a conversation or thread, whereas anyone is permitted to view them. However, anonymous visitors are usually prohibited from participating.

Forum Rules and Regulations

Forums are created, managed, and maintained by an individual or group of individuals who are referred to as administrators. Guidelines for all forums are created, and all participating members are required to follow them. These regulations are often found in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section of the forum, and the rules are usually basic and apply to common courtesy. Behavior that is prohibited includes insulting, swearing, harassing, inappropriate language, advertising, selling, spamming, personal information posting, sexual content, having more than one account, and warez or other copyright infringements. (Warez refers to works that are copyrighted and traded ...