A forum is an outlet for opinions expressed as a discussion or question and answers. The opinions or Q&A are crowdsourced from an audience involved with the subject matter, often membership of the community.
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 has nearly unlimited media space, limited only by the setup of the community. Forums also have RSS, which only galleries and forums have.
A Telligent forum has 3 features that aren't in any other application:
- I also have this question. This feature on a forum thread question has a counter which increases whenever someone checks the "I also have this question" check box;
- 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. (However the answered status can be changed.)
Like most forums, Telligent forums are organized by threads.
How do I create a forum?
Please follow the instructions on the What is an application? article.