A

Project On

Discussion Forum
For The
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER
APPLICATIONS
BIT Durg
Session 2014-15

Submitted To Submitted By
Mr. Neeraj Kharya ChanchalTripathi
Shikha Shyamkuwar
MCA 5th Semester

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 Table Of Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Structure of existing system 4

3. Proposed System with inhancement & feature 8

4. S/W & H/W Requirements 11

Software Required

Hardware Required

Technology used

5. Proposed Model Used 12

6. Flow Diagram 13

7. Project Planning 14

8. References 15

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Introduction
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold
conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are
often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the
access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a
moderator before it becomes visible.

A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of sub
forums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion
started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.

Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum
and then subsequently login in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log
in to read existing messages.

Structure of existing system

A forum consists of a tree like directory structure. The top end is "Categories". A forum can be
divided into categories for the relevant discussions. Under the categories are sub-forums and
these sub-forums can further have more sub-forums. The topics (commonly called threads) come
under the lowest level of sub-forums and these are the places under which members can start
their discussions or posts. Logically forums are organized into a finite set of generic topics
(usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as members, and governed
by a group known as moderators. It can also have a graph structure. All message boards will use
one of three possible display formats. Each of the three basic message board display formats:
Non-Threaded/Semi-Threaded/Fully Threaded, has its own advantages and disadvantages. If
messages are not related to one another at all a Non-Threaded format is best. If a user has a
message topic and multiple replies to that message topic a semi-threaded format is best. If a user
has a message topic and replies to that message topic, and replies to replies, then a fully threaded
format is best.

User groups

Internally, Western-style forums organize visitors and logged in members into user groups.
Privileges and rights are given based on these groups. A user of the forum can automatically be
promoted to a more privileged user group based on criteria set by the administrator. A person
viewing a closed thread as a member will see a box saying he does not have the right to submit
messages there, but a moderator will likely see the same box granting him access to more than
just posting messages.

An unregistered user of the site is commonly known as a guest or visitor. Guests are typically
granted access to all functions that do not require database alterations or breach privacy. A guest
can usually view the contents of the forum or use such features as read marking, but occasionally
an administrator will disallow visitors to read their forum as an incentive to become a registered

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member. A person who is a very frequent visitor of the forum, a section or even a thread is
referred to as a lurker and the habit is referred to as lurking. Registered members often will refer
to themselves as lurking in a particular location, which is to say they have no intention of
participating in that section but enjoy reading the contributions to it.

Moderators

The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are
granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion
(similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.).
Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to
specific complaints. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and
splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending,
unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of
threads. "Junior Modding", "Backseat Modding", or "Forum copping" can refer negatively to the
behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members.

Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board
as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this
user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness
as a community of interrelated users.

Administrator

The administrators (short form: "admin") manage the technical details required for running the
site. As such, they may promote (and demote) members to/from moderators, manage the rules,
create sections and sub-sections, as well as perform any database operations (database backup
etc.). Administrators often also act as moderators. Administrators may also make forum-wide
announcements, or change the appearance (known as the skin) of a forum. There are also many
forums where administrators share their knowledge.

Post

A post is a user-submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the
date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts.
Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as blocks one after another. The first post starts
the thread; this may be called the TS (thread starter) or OP (original post). Posts that follow in
the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not
uncommon for discussions to be derailed.

On Western forums, the classic way to show a member's own details (such as name and avatar)
has been on the left side of the post, in a narrow column of fixed width, with the post controls
located on the right, at the bottom of the main body, above the signature block. In more recent
forum software implementations, the Asian style of displaying the members' details above the
post has been copied.

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Posts have an internal limit usually measured in characters. Often one is required to have a
message of minimum length of 10 characters. There is always an upper limit but it is rarely
reached – most boards have it at either 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 characters.

Most forums keep track of a user's postcount. The postcount is a measurement of how many
posts a certain user has made. Users with higher postcounts are often considered more reputable
than users with lower postcounts, but not always. For instance some forums have disabled
postcounts with the hopes that doing so will emphasize the quality of information over quantity.

Thread

A thread (sometimes called a topic) is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to
latest, although this is typically configurable: Options for newest to oldest and for a threaded
view (a tree-like view applying logical reply structure before chronological order) can be
available. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarize the
intended discussion, and an opening or original post (common abbreviation OP, which can also
mean original poster), which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever announcement the
poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same
members, even if they are one after the other.

A thread is contained in a forum, and may have an associated date that is taken as the date of the
last post (options to order threads by other criteria are generally available). When a member
posts in a thread it will jump to the top since it is the latest updated thread. Similarly, other
threads will jump in front of it when they receive posts. When a member posts in a thread for no
reason but to have it go to the top, it is referred to as a bump or bumping. It has been suggested
that "bump" is an acronym of "bring up my post" however, this is almost certainly a acronym
and the usage is entirely consistent with the verb "bump" which means "to knock to a new
position".

Threads that are important but rarely receive posts are stickyed (or, in some software, "pinned").
A sticky thread will always appear in front of normal threads, often in its own section. A
"threaded discussion group" is simply any group of individuals who use a forum for threaded, or
asynchronous, discussion purposes. The group may or may not be the only users of the forum.

A thread's popularity is measured on forums in reply (total posts minus one, the opening post, in
most default forum settings) counts. Some forums also track page views. Threads meeting a set
number of posts or a set number of views may receive a designation such as "hot thread" and be
displayed with a different icon compared to other threads. This icon may stand out more to
emphasize the thread. If the forum's users have lost interest in a particular thread, it becomes a
dead thread.

Forums prefer a premise of open and free discussion and often adopt de facto standards. Most
common topics on forums include questions, comparisons, polls of opinion as well as debates. It
is not uncommon for nonsense or unsocial behavior to sprout as people lose temper, especially if
the topic is controversial. Poor understanding of differences in values of the participants is a
common problem on forums. Because replies to a topic are often worded aimed at someone's

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point of view, discussion will usually go slightly off into several directions as people question
each other's validity, sources and so on. Circular discussion and ambiguity in replies can extend
for several tens of posts of a thread eventually ending when everyone gives up or attention spans
waver and a more interesting subject takes over. It is not uncommon for debate to end in ad
hominem attacks .

Common features
By default to be an Internet forum, the web application needs an ability to submit threads and
replies. Typically, threads are in newer to older view, and replies in older to newer view.

Tripcodes and capcodes

In a tripcode system, a secret password is added to the user's name following a separator
character (often a number sign). This password, or tripcode, is hashed into a special key, or trip,
distinguishable from the name by HTML styles. Tripcodes cannot be faked but on some types of
forum software they are insecure and can be guessed. On other types, they can be brute forced
with software designed to search for tripcodes such as Tripcode Explorer.

Moderators and administrators will frequently assign themselves capcodes, or tripcodes where
the guessable trip is replaced with a special notice (such as "# Administrator"), or cap.

Private message

A private message, or PM for short, is a message sent in private from a member to one or more
other members. The ability to send so-called carbon copies is sometimes available. When
sending a carbon copy (cc), the users to whom the message is sent directly will not be aware of
the recipients of the carbon copy or even if one was sent in the first place.

Private messages are generally used for personal conversations. They can also be used with
tripcodes—a message is addressed to a public trip and can be picked up by typing in the tripcode.

Attachment

An attachment can be almost any file. When someone attaches a file to a person's post they are
uploading the file to the forum's server. Forums usually have very strict limit on what can be
attached and what cannot (among which the size of the files in question). Attachments can be
part of a thread, social group, etc.

BBCode and HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is sometimes allowed but usually its use is discouraged
or when allowed, it is extensively filtered. Modern bulletin board systems often will have it
disabled altogether or allow only administrators use it, as allowing it on any normal user level is
considered a security risk due to a high rate of XSS vulnerabilities

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Other features

An ignore list allows members to hide posts of other members that they do not want to see or
have a problem with. In most implementations, they are referred to as foe list or ignore list.
Usually the posts are not hidden, but minimized with only a small bar indicating a post from the
user on the ignore list is there. Almost all internet forums include a member list, which allows
display of all forum members, with integrated search feature. Some forums will not list members
with 0 posts, even if they have activated their accounts.

Many forums allow users to give themselves an avatar. An avatar is an image that appears beside
all of a user's posts, in order to make the user more recognizable. The user may upload the image
to the forum database, or may provide a link to an image on a separate website. Each forum has
limits on the height, width, and data size of avatars that may be used; if the user tries to use an
avatar that is too big, it may be scaled down or rejected.

Similarly, most forums allow users to define a signature (sometimes called a sig), which is a
block of text, possibly with BBCode, which appears at the bottom of all of the user's posts. There
is a character limit on signatures, though it may be so high that it is rarely hit. Often the forum's
moderators impose manual rules on signatures to prevent them from being obnoxious (for
example, being extremely long or having flashing images), and issue warnings or bans to users
who break these rules. Like avatars, signatures may improve the recognizability of a poster. They
may also allow the user to attach information to all of their posts, such as proclaiming support for
a cause, noting facts about themselves, or quoting humorous things that have previously been
said on the forum.

Common on forums, a subscription is a form of automated notification integrated into the

software of most forums. It usually notifies either by email or on the site when the member
returns. The option to subscribe is available for every thread while logged in. Subscriptions work
with read marking, namely the property of unread, which is given to the content never served to
the user by the software.

Recent development in some popular implementations of forum software has brought social
network features and functionality. Such features include personal galleries, pages as well as a
social network like chat systems.

Most forum software is now fully customizable with "hacks" or "modifications" readily available
to customize a person's forum to theirs and their members' needs.

Often forums use "cookies", or information about the user's behavior on the site sent to a user's
browser and used upon re-entry into the site. This is done to facilitate automatic login and to
show a user whether a thread or forum has received new posts since his or her last visit. These
may be disabled or cleared at any time.[20]

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Proposed system
Our project simply implements almost all the features of the existing project and provides a
forum where members of the forum can be discussed. We limited our group member only with
the students , teachers and practitioner who belong to computer science field . Therefore the
topic of the discussion would be related to computer science and their applications .Any
unrelated topic would not be allowed in this forum.

Rules and policies

Forums are governed by a set of individuals, collectively referred to as staff, made up of
administrators and moderators, which are responsible for the forums' conception, technical
maintenance, and policies (creation and enforcing). Most forums have a list of rules detailing the
wishes, aim and guidelines of the forums' creators. There is usually also a FAQ section
containing basic information for new members and people not yet familiar with the use and
principles of a forum (generally tailored for specific forum software).

Rules on forums usually apply to the entire user body and often have preset exceptions, most
commonly designating a section as an exception. For example, in an IT forum any discussion
regarding anything but computer programming languages may be against the rules, with the
exception of a general chat section.

Forum rules are maintained and enforced by the moderation team, but users are allowed to help
out via what is known as a report system. Most American forum software contains such a system
It consists of a small function applicable to each post (including one's own). Using it will notify
all currently available moderators of its location, and subsequent action or judgment can be
carried out immediately, which is particularly desirable in large or very developed boards.
Generally, moderators encourage members to also use the private message system if they wish to
report behavior. Moderators will generally frown upon attempts of moderation by non-
moderators, especially when the would-be moderators do not even issue a report. Messages from
non-moderators acting as moderators generally declare a post as against the rules, or predict
punishment. While not harmful, statements that attempt to enforce the rules are discouraged.

When rules are broken several steps are commonly taken. First, a warning is usually given; this
is commonly in the form of a private message but recent development has made it possible for it
to be integrated into the software. Subsequent to this, if the act is ignored and warnings do not
work, the member is – usually – first exiled from the forum for a number of days. Denying
someone access to the site is called a ban. Bans can mean the person can no longer log in or even
view the site anymore. If the offender, after the warning sentence, repeats the offense, another
ban is given, usually this time a longer one. Continuous harassment of the site eventually leads to
a permanent ban. In most cases, this means simply that the account is locked. In extreme cases
where the offender – after being permanently banned – creates another account and continues to
harass the site, administrators will apply an IP address ban or block (this can also be applied at
the server level): If the IP address is static, the machine of the offender is prevented from
accessing the site. In some extreme circumstances, IP address range bans or country bans can be

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applied; this is usually for political, licensing, or other reasons. See also: Block (Internet), IP
address blocking, and Internet censorship.

Offending content is usually deleted. Sometimes if the topic is considered the source of the
problem, it is locked; often a poster may request a topic expected to draw problems to be locked
as well, although the moderators decide whether to grant it. In a locked thread, members cannot
post anymore. In cases where the topic is considered a breach of rules it – with all of its posts –
may be deleted.

Spamming

Forum spamming is a breach of netiquette where users repeat the same word or phrase over and
over, but differs from multiple posting in that spamming is usually a willful act that sometimes
has malicious intent. This is a common trolling technique. It can also be traditional spam, unpaid
advertisements that are in breach of the forum's rules. Spammers utilize a number of illicit
techniques to post their spam, including the use of botnets.

Some forums consider concise, comment-oriented posts spam, for example Thank you, Cool or I
love it.

Double posting

One common faux pas on Internet forums is to post the same message twice. Users sometimes
post versions of a message that are only slightly different, especially in forums where they are
not allowed to edit their earlier posts. Multiple posting instead of editing prior posts can
artificially inflate a user's post count. Multiple posting can be unintentional; a user's browser
might display an error message even though the post has been transmitted or a user of a slow
forum might become impatient and repeatedly hit the submit button. Multiple posting can also be
used as a method of trolling or spreading forum spam. A user may also send the same post to
several forums, which is termed crossposting. The term derives from Usenet, where crossposting
was an accepted practice but causes problems in web forums, which lack the ability to link such
posts so replies in one forum are not visible to people reading the post in other forums.

Necroposting

A necropost is a message that revives (as in necromancy) an arbitrarily old thread, causing it to
appear above newer and more active threads. This practice is generally seen as a breach of
netiquette on most forums. Because old threads are not usually locked from further posting,
necroposting is common for newer users and in cases where the date of previous posts is not
apparent.

Registration or anonymity

Nearly all Internet forums require registration to post. Registered users of the site are referred to
as members and are allowed to submit or send electronic messages through the web application.
The process of registration involves verification of one's age (typically over 12 is required so as

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to meet COPPA requirements of American forum software) followed by a declaration of the
terms of service (other documents may also be present) and a request for agreement to said
terms. Subsequently, if all goes well, the candidate is presented with a web form to fill
requesting at the very least a username (an alias), password, email and validation of a
CAPTCHA code.While simply completing the registration web form is in general enough to
generate an account, the status label Inactive is commonly provided by default until the
registered user confirms the email address given while registering indeed belongs to the user.
Until that time, the registered user can log in to the new account but may not post, reply, or send
private messages in the forum.

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 Software And Hardware Requirements

Softwares Required:

1. Operating System (Windows/Linux/Mac)

2. Web Browsers (IE8 or above/Firfox/Chrome)
3. Web browsers must have Javascript enabled.

Hardwares Required:

Processor : Pentium.
RAM : 512 MB.
Hard Disk : 10 GB.
Monitor : SVGA Color Monitor.
Keyboard and Mouse

Front-End : Java
Back-End : MySql

Technology used for development :

1. Apache Tomcat Server

2. Eclipse IDE
3. HTML 5

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 Proposed Model Used
Prototype Model : The basic idea here is that instead of freezing the requirements
before a design or coding can proceed, a throwaway prototype is built to understand the
requirements. This prototype is developed based on the currently known requirements.
By using this prototype, the client can get an “actual feel” of the system, since the
interactions with prototype can enable the client to better understand the requirements of
the desired system. Prototyping is an attractive idea for complicated and large systems
for which there is no manual process or existing system to help determining the
requirements. The prototype are usually not complete systems and many of the details are
not built in the prototype. The goal is to provide a system with overall functionality.

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