Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user and/or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.
Forums have their own language; e.g. A single conversation is called a 'thread'. A forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: forum - subforum - topic - thread[clarification needed] - reply.
Depending on the forum set-up, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently log in in order to post messages. Usually you do not have to log in to read existing messages.
