The forum page type provides categorized discussion boards. A forum visitor can browse through different sub-forums and open each discussion thread. With a public or standard ACM account, a user can also contribute to the forum by starting a new discussion topic or replying to existing threads.
The Forum page type provides four main screens: the Forum Home screen, the Threads Listing screen, the Thread Reading screen, and the Post Writing/Editing screen.
Forum Home: this screen serves as a welcome page and general information provider of the forum site
Threads Listing: this screen shows a list of all the thread topics under a selected sub-forum or all the topics of a specific search result
Thread Reading: this screen shows the content of a thread: the initial message and all the following reply comments
Forum Posting: this screen allows an authorized user to write and edit his/her message and then post it as an initial post of a thread or as a reply to an existing discussion.
Each forum requires an administrator. The administrator has control over all of the forum configuration and forum data. The administrator can:
change the global settings of a forum page
create, close, or modify a sub-forum
edit, delete, move, or lock any thread on the forum
see the IP of any forum user in the view mode
ban/un-ban a user ID or block an IP address from posting messages. A warning message will be given for any posting attempt: “Sorry, you are not allowed to post message on this board.”
Each forum has a forum-wide black list that lists all banned user IDs and IPs. Each sub-forum also has a sub-forum black list. A sub-forum black list is usually managed by the moderators of that sub-forum. But the forum administrator should be able to edit any sub-forum’s black list. Sub-forum black list only bans user by their user IDs. A user who is listed in a sub-forum black list will only be blocked from posting message onto that sub-forum.
You must also define who the forum moderators are. Moderators can be selected from both regular and ACM and public users. The forum administrator has the option to choose from a sub-set of their forum management privilege and grant them to the moderators. Other features of the moderator role are as follows:
Moderators as public users have no access to the edit mode hence they can only perform their moderation power under the view mode.
Moderators are associated with sub-forums. Moderators can only use their moderation power within the sub-forum(s) they are assigned to.
Moderators can only be assigned to or removed from the role by the forum administrator.