# forum (social)

a place where people interact about information

- Computed level: L7 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: place  ·  Arena: forum

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [space](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-space.extent), [interaction](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-interaction.process), [information](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-information.knowledge), [people](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-people.social), [interacting](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-interacting.social)

**Through:** people interact about information in a place through mutual touch, forming a social exchange shaped by shared patterns of knowledge.

**Novel properties:**
- social exchange of ideas
- persistent interaction in shared space
- emergent discourse community

## Examples
- Reddit hosts millions of user-generated discussions across thousands of topic-specific subreddits since 2005. *(computing)*
- The Athenian Agora hosted daily debates on law, trade, and philosophy among citizens in the 5th century BCE. *(institutions)*
- Stack Overflow enables programmers to ask and answer technical questions, accumulating 20 million answers by 2023. *(engineering)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-forum.social*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-forum.social.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*