Containers and forums vs. forums and topics (and general forum terminology).

[klonos]

I don't have much experience with forums but wanted to ask this very fundamental question because I was puzzled when I first encountered the term "container":

So, independently of Drupal, I am used to "forums"/"message boards"/"discussion groups"/"bulletin boards" being websites (or the software that runs these websites) where people have "discussions"/"conversations"/"threads" about various "topics"/"subjects" by posting "comments"/"messages". What are these things called in Drupal forum.module? Does this terminology follow a generally accepted (by the users of other, dedicated forum software) pattern or do we call one thing something while the rest of the world calls it something else? If that is the case, can we please correct this in Backdrop and do so as early as possible?

On the structure side of things, I am used to seeing what I would describe as an index of discussion groups called "forums" (are these what we call "containers"?). Within those discussion groups, you have the actual discussions which I would describe as a series of comments by people. I call these "topics" (are these what we call "forums"?).

Am I right with the usage of these terms or do I have it completely wrong? The definition of "Internet forum" in Wikipedia plus this "What is an Internet Forum?" article at wiseGEEK might be of some help.

[klonos]

...I just saw that we have "Forum topic" under Create content. So, I guess that the structure is

- container
- - forum
- - - forum topic (node)
- - - - topic message (comment)

...which makes sense. I concluded that the "container" is another level of grouping that we have. Am I right?

[klonos]

...I guess that another confusing thing is that we have now renamed the "Article" node type to "Post", while in forum terminology, a post is actually a comment in a thread.

[docwilmot]

I concluded that the "container" is another level of grouping that we have. Am I right?

Sounds right. My last push starts to remove containers. I am aiming to remove containers because they are difficult to handle when a forum is re-installed. I am thinking that now that Forum is a contrib module, it might be that persons will be more likely to reinstall while trying other contrib. Plus moving to Views make containers since theyre pulled from config, not a table.

[docwilmot]

Removed containers. Now just forums, topics, and threads.

[klonos]

👍

[stpaultim]

I am going to reopen this, because I just downloaded and installed the most recent version of forum module and I am seeing the option to add a container or a forum. I was going to try to write up better documentation on the difference between the two, because it is confusing me.

But, then I found this old issue. Now, I'm more confused. :-)