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 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.

Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; e.g. a single conversation is called a "thread".

A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, 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 log in in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.

The modern forum originated from bulletin boards, and are a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.

Nils Daniel Carl Bildt KCMG (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999. He has served as Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs since 6 October 2006.

Bildt has also been noted internationally as a mediator in the Balkan conflict, serving as the European Union's Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia from June 1995, co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference in November 1995 and as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 1995 to June 1997 immediately after the Bosnian War. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans.

Bildt was born in Halmstad, Halland, and belongs to an old Norwegian-Danish-Swedish noble family traditionally domiciled in Bohus county. Bildt attended Stockholm University but never graduated. His great-great-grandfather, Baron Gillis Bildt, served as Prime Minister a century earlier and as a diplomat as well as Marshal of the Realm of Sweden (riksmarskalk). His great-grandfather, General Knut Bildt, was chief of the general staff. His great-grandfather's brother Carl Bildt served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Cabinet - Secretary (Under secretary of state of foreign affairs, in Swedish kabinettssekreterare) and was a renowned diplomat and member of the Swedish Academy. Bildt's grandfather Nils Bildt was a colonel and chief of the Halland Regiment. Colonel Bildt and his family were neighbours to the Palme family. Bildt's father Daniel Bildt (1920–2010) was a former major in the reserves of the now defunct Halland Regiment (Hallands regemente) and a former bureau director in the now defunct Civil Defense Board's Education Bureau. He married Kerstin Andersson-Alwå in 1947.