What is "forum"

Forum \Fo"rum\, n.; pl. E. Forums, L. Fora. [L.; akin to foris, foras, out of doors. See Foreign.]

1. A market place or public place in Rome, where causes were judicially tried, and orations delivered to the people.

2. A tribunal; a court; an assembly empowered to hear and decide causes.

   He [Lord Camden] was . . . more eminent in the senate than in the forum.
   --Brougham.

mid-15c., "place of assembly in ancient Rome," from Latin forum "marketplace, open space, public place," apparently akin to foris, foras "out of doors, outside," from PIE root *dhwer- "door, doorway" (see door). Sense of "assembly, place for public discussion" first recorded 1680s.

n. 1 A place for discussion. 2 A gathering for the purpose of discussion. 3 A form of discussion involving a panel of presenters and often participation by members of the audience. 4 (context Internet English) An Internet message board where users can post messages regarding one or more topics of discussion. 5 (in a Roman town) a square or marketplace used for public business and commerce.

1. n. a public meeting or assembly for open discussion

2. a public facility to meet for open discussion [syn: assembly, meeting place]

3. a place of assembly for the people in ancient Greece [syn: agora, public square]

4. [also: fora (pl)]

Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to:

• Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city
  • Roman Forum, most famous example
• Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States
• Internet forum, discussion board on the Internet
• Public forum debate, or Pofo, a type of debate.

A forum ( Latin forum "public place outdoors", plural fora; English plural either fora or forums) was a public square in a Roman municipium, or any civitas, reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a marketplace, along with the buildings used for shops and the stoas used for open stalls. Many forums were constructed at remote locations along a road by the magistrate responsible for the road, in which case the forum was the only settlement at the site and had its own name, such as Forum Popili or Forum Livi.

In United States constitutional law, a public forum is a government-owned property that is open to public expression and assembly.

Forum is a shopping centre in Helsinki, Finland, opened in 1985 and located between the streets of Mannerheimintie, Simonkatu, Yrjönkatu and Kalevankatu.

The original Forum building is located in the corner of Mannerheimintie and Simonkatu. The shopping centre has been constantly expanded to also fill other buildings in the city block.

The shopping centre includes an underground parking lot, with connections to the nearby surroundings, including to Stockmann.

As well as numerous businesses, the Forum city block includes the privately owned Amos Anderson art museum and the Forum medical and dental health centre.

Forum is the only privately owned shopping centre in the Finnish capital area. Bilinguality is emphasised in the shopping centre, because it is owned by Finland-Swedish organisations, most notably Föreningen Konstsamfundet, which was founded in 1940 by Amos Anderson. The organisation supports Finland-Swedish culture and publications, and deals out grants, which amount up to 3 million euro per year. This is financed by the rent from the Forum shopping centre building.

Forum Mall also known as Forum Courtyard (wwww.forumcourtyard.com) is a shopping mall in the Bhowanipore area of Kolkata, India. It was initially conceived as an office tower; 80% of the foundation was complete before it was converted into a mall. Currently it covers 200,000 square feet of area and has 125,000 square feet of retail area, and was opened to the public with the launch of Shoppers' Stop. Its opening was credited with turning its neighbourhood from a quiet residential area into an upmarket shopping destination. It has been noted for its excellent layout and signage. The mall is constructed and owned by Rahul Saraf, Chairman of SAPL. The Mall also has a branch in Bhubaneswar named Forum Mart, and has a new addition in Howrah, Belur as Forum Rangoli Mall.

The tenants are diverse ranging from retail outlets to entertainment multiplex theatres to dining. The mall offers paging services and a dedicated telephone exchange. As of July 2003, the mall had parking space for 175 cars and planned to increase it to 700 cars in 18 months.

Forum is an album by Australian guitar pop group Invertigo. The album was released in 2001 with some songs (such as "Desensitised" and "Chances Are") recorded in 2000.

Forum is one of the oldest weekly political magazines in the Republic of Macedonia. It has been in publication since 1997.

Forum is a two-hour live call-in radio program produced by KQED-FM, presenting discussions of local, state, national and international issues, and in-depth interviews. The program began in 1990 as a politics-oriented talk show, created and hosted by Kevin Pursglove. Since 1993, it has been hosted by scholar, author, professor, and former KGO Radio host Michael Krasny, who broadened the program's scope to a cross-section of current events.

The format of Forum varies from show to show, but generally involves an in-person interview followed by public Q&A via phone or email with one or more subjects, often nationally prominent authors and scholars. The program airs for two hours on weekday mornings, with an hour repeated in the evening.

Forum, formerly known as the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) is an organization that provides arbitration and mediation services to businesses, based at its Minneapolis, Minnesota headquarters and offices in New Jersey. The organization was founded in 1986. As of 2008, the National Arbitration Forum administered over 200,000 cases a year, most of which were consumer debt collection cases. In 2009, the National Arbitration Forum ceased administration of new consumer arbitrations as part of a consent decree with Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson concerning the NAF's ties with debt collection firms. The company maintains a panel of over 1,600 arbitrators and mediators who are attorneys and former judges located across the United States and in 35 countries around the world. Panelists arbitrate and mediate the disputes.

The company is an "approved" dispute resolution service provider of ICANN domain name disputes and has handled more than 7,600 cases.

Forum was a Bangladeshi English-language monthly current affairs magazine. Founded in 1969 in the then East Pakistan, by human rights activist Hameeda Hossain and economist Rehman Sobhan, the magazine became renowned for its outspoken criticism against the West Pakistani establishment, and advocacy of democracy and economic reforms in the Pakistani union. During the political crisis and mass uprising in East Pakistan following the 1970 first democratic elections of Pakistan, Forum led the chorus of Bengali intellectuals expressing disillusionment with the Pakistani establishment and the inevitability of the breakup of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army shut down the magazine on 26 March 1971, during the early hours of Operation Searchlight.

In 2006, The Daily Star, Bangladesh's largest circulating English daily newspaper, began re-publishing the magazine on a monthly basis. Shah Hussain Imam served as the executive editor of the magazine. The editorial board consisted of original Forum founders Hameeda Hossain and Rehman Sobhan as well as Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, Matiur Rahman, editor and publisher of Prothom Alo, and Anisuzzaman, a professor of Bengali at the University of Dhaka. In April 2013 the Forum published its last issue.

The magazine attracted columnists and contributors from across South Asia, such as Amartya Sen, Tariq Ali, Kuldip Nayar and Ahmed Rashid.