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There are many internet forums out there and I am wondering which would be the most correct way to structure one's own forum. For example, many forums are stated as "Forums" (even more use the singular "Forum" form or "Board"), then coming up with "Categories", "Discussions" or "Topics" and finally "Posts" or "Comments". I would like to know what you would prefer and if you would make some distinction between some forms of "Forums" when naming their structure. |
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It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.
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A typical and minimalistic structure for a discussion board is: Forum -> Thread -> Post Then, you can group forums in categories and forums may contain subforums. But, it greatly depends on the workflow of the system. In order to get a feeling of the terminology used, it'd be better to have a look at the history of such systems (e.g. Bulletin Board systems) and the concept of ancient agoras/forums. But, in order not to start over-describing the whole concept, it's all about practicality and distinguishing online and offline discussions/concepts. So, offline, you have discussions on topics, and online you have conversation threads containing posts (like posts in a real bulletin board). A comment provides additional information/input on something else, whereas a post provides a complete answer. edit: Imagine someone asking if "Twitter's 'tweets' are different from Facebook's 'posts' and StackExhange's 'answers'". It wouldn't really be relevant to ask if 'tweet' is a valid word, right? It's their system, they may call their 'units of dialog' whatever they want ;). I could tell someone that I "read their comment on tweeter", and they would have every right to look at me strange but they'd nevertheless be able to understand what I meant. |
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