File name: forum-function-inventory-18.doc
Latest change: 2013-12-17

An inventory of functions
in Forum software

The intention of this inventory of functions in Forum software is to be a checklist in the development of Forum software products. The statistics on how often some of the functions are used are based on actual usage statistics from the KOM version 5 computer conferencing software. These statistics may of course vary with different software design.

 

Group

Statistics

Name

Description

Reading news

30.63 %

Next in thread

Show the next message, which I have not yet seen, in the current thread.

21.03 %

Next unseen

Show the next message, which I have not yet seen, in the current forum.

12.66 %

Next forum

Show the first unseen message in the next forum, in which I am a subscriber and have unseen messages.

2.35 %

Next personal

Show the next unseen personal e-mail sent to me.

0.79 %

News overview

Give an overview of in which forums I have unseen messages.

0.64 %

Mark seen

Regard all unseen messages in a certain forum as seen, without reading them.

0.24 %

Skip thread

Regard all unseen messages in a certain thread as seen, without reading them.

0.94 %

Remember

Sort a message to a folder, delete a message, etc.

 

Get notifications

Get notifications in Internet e-mail at regular intervals, telling you what is new in the forums you subscribe to.

Searching

2.14 %

Go to a forum

Move to a new forum.

2.70 %

View user

Look at information about other registered users, list users online.

0.39 %

Find forum

List forums (also those, where you are not a member), search for forums, find new forums, etc.

 

Find user

Find information about another user.

6.08 %

Reshow

Show a recently shown message once more.

 

Find own messages

Find old messages of your own.

 

Browse thread

Browse through messages in a thread (up and down).

 

Find message

Searching for old messages on content, date, author, etc.

Writing

7.28 %

Write message

Write contribution or personal e-mail.

Add attachment

Add attachment to message.

Add picture

Add picture to a message.

Anonymous/ pseudonymous messages

Allow people to write anonymous or pseudonymous messages, may be restricted to certain forums only.

Add recipients

Sending a message to multiple forums and recipients.

Reply personal

Reply personally to the author only.

Reply to all

Reply to all forums and people, to which the replied-to message was sent.

Expiration time

Setting expiration time on messages.

Restricted distribution

Restricting distribution of a message to a certain geographical area or a certain organization.

Typing of messages

Giving a message a type such as "happy", "question", "promise".

Subscribing

0.30 %

Subscribe

Subscribing to a forum.

0.17 %

Unsubscribe

Unsubsribe from a forum.

 

Apply for membership

Apply to the organizer of a closed forum for membership in the forum.

 

Subscribed forums

List the forums, to which you are subscribed.

9.80 %

Log in, log out

Go to the forum software, leave the forum software.

 

List members

Show lists of the members of a forum.

Managment

0.24 %

Create forum

Starta new forum.

Modify, delete forum

Remove an existing forum (access controlled), modify the description and parameters of a forum.

Forum types

Open, closed, restricted, secret, write-only (drop-box) forums. Restricted forums are open to certain groups, such as members of an organisation or employees of a company.

Announcing forums

Telling other users of new forums, which you have created

0.04 %

Add/remove subscriber

Add and remove other members from a forum (access controlled).

 

Organized forums

List the forums, for which you are the organizer or moderator.

 

Register user

Register someone else as user of the forum software.

 

Register yourself

Register yourself as user of the forum software.

 

Change registration

Change the registered information about yourself, remove yourself from the forum software. Includes changing password and e-mail address. Also includes personal description and address information which a user provides to other users.

0.03 %

Change message

Change an already submitted message (access controlled).

0.02 %

Help

Get information about how to use the forum software.

 

Test run

Test the forum service with reduced functionality without registering yourself.

Language handling

 

Preferred languages

Specify which languages you prefer when reading messages available in multiple languages

 

Translate message

Translate a message to a new language (manually yourself, manually by professional translator, automatic by computer.

Distance education

 

Distance education

Special support for courses: Start courses, start forums in courses, review contributions by students, set marks on students' contributions, overviewing the activities of students. Can also include support for exams and distribution and management of tasks.

Voting

 

Voting

Facilities for handling votes and queries, crerate a vote query, different kinds of votes, send vote query, collect results, present results, anonymous and non-anonymous voting.

Distributed operation

 

Other organisations

Participate in forums in other forum servers than your own server. They are replicated to your own server. This includes tools to find forums in other organisations, and to subscribe to them.

Joint editing

 

Joint editing

Special support for groups of people writing a common document.

Active messages

 

Active messages

Messages which are executed when read.

Filtering

 

Filtering

Filtering messages based on content, quality, other people's rating of the message, etc.

E-mail

 

Sending e-mail

Sending messages to Internet e-mail.

 

Subscribing e-mail

Making an Internet e-mail address into a member of a forum. The forum will appear as a mailing list to the owner of this e-mail address.

 

Getting e-mail

Receiving Internet e-mail as personal e-mail.

 

E-mail coupling

Receiving Internet e-mail direct to forums.

 

Other documents of interest:

ISO: ISO User Requirements on Computer-Supported Voting and Polling.

Kilander, Fredrik: Intelligent Filtering of Computer Mediated Communication.

Wooley, David R.: Conferencing Software on the Web.

Palme, Jacob: Linking Conferences to Web Pages.

Palme, Jacob: Information Filtering.

Palme, Jacob: Computer Conferencing Functions and Standards.

Palme, Jacob and Tholerus, Torgny: SuperKOM, Design Considerations for a Distributed, Highly Structured Conference System.

Palme, Jacob: History of the COM Computer Conferencing System.

Palme, Jacob: Experience with the Use of the COM Computer Conferencing System.