Online discussion forums are basically computer based reservoirs of messages built via the individual posting of messages to a common address. This can be accomplished through numerous technologies:

• listservs - in which participants "subscribe" to a list and receive e-mail messages from all the other subscribers
• newsgroups - in which participants connect to a usenet address and view and post messages in a manner similar to e-mail (the difference is that in a listserv messages come directly to the participant's e-mail address, whereas in newsgroups the participant connects to an address where s/he finds the posted messages)
• web-based discussion forums - in which the participant connects to a web-site where s/he can view the existing messages, read them, and add to them directly. Numerous technologies are available for these forums, each permitting different levels of ease of use.

In listservs, because messages arrive as e-mail to the subscriber, the subscriber may choose how to receive incoming messages according to the possibilities available from his/her e-mail program. Messages can be organized via date, via sender or via subject. Threading groups messages via subject such that responses to a particular posting are grouped next to (or below) the main, or opening, message on that subject. Newsgroup forums allow the same sort of threading.

Web-based discussion forums are less flexible in that their appearance is pre-determined by the technology being used and can't be manipulated by the user. Some of these do no more than display messages by date. Others group messages and responses to them in a format similar to separate folders for each main topic, and others other achieve what might be called "true" threading via which it's possible to see at a glance how response to each main topic has developed.

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