An Internet forum, often known as a message board, is a website where users can have online discussions in the form of posted messages. Unlike chat rooms, messages are frequently longer than one line of text and are at least briefly archived. A posted message may also need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes publicly available, depending on the user’s access level or the forum setup.

A single chat, for example, is referred to as a “thread,” or topic, in a forum.

A discussion forum’s structure is orderly or tree-like: a forum can have multiple subforums, each with multiple subjects. Each new debate begun within a forum’s topic is referred to as a thread, and it can be replied to by as many individuals as desired.

Users can be anonymous or must register with the forum and then log in to post messages, depending on the forum’s settings. Users do not need to log in to read existing postings on most forums.