A forum is an outlet for opinions expressed in a discussion format, or as question and answers. The opinions or Q&A are crowdsourced from an audience involved with the subject matter.
How is a forum different from other applications?
All of a forum's content is crowdsourced.
This is different from a blog, which is authored by 1 individual or a group of authors. It's different from a wiki in that the author is a permissioned author. (Wikis also have a versioning feature that forums don't have.) A gallery... is owned by an owner?
A forum has 2 features that aren't in any other application:
- I also have this question, which has a counter that increases whenever someone checks the I also have this question check box in a thread;
- Suggested answer/verified answer. The author of a reply can click Suggest as answer, which turns the thread header yellow. If the answer is verified, the header turns green.