Basic Terms in the Forum

The Topic:

the topic is the collection of messages grouped together in a meaningful conversation, with a title, listed in a category, beginning with an Original Post, and including all replies in chronological order.

Elsewhere this might be called a ‘thread’ but ‘topic’ is used since thread is used for linked elements that can go off in many different directions (and be confused with programming terms).

Post:

Each element of a topic is referred to as a post. Each post has its own author and can be moved to a different topic if necessary, or even become the start of a new topic.

Category:

The primary means of organizing topics. Each topic is placed in exactly one category. Categories have permissions which can restrict which users can create, reply, and see its topics. You can also configure notification preferences per category or even mute them as explained below. Categories are a similar concept to a ‘forum’ on other sites.

Tag:

A marker placed on a topic to describe it. While a topic can only have one category, it can have multiple tags. New tags can be created by some users.