Patent ID: 8856870

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a processing device, a request for information; identifying, by the processing device, a subject matter associated with the request; selecting, by the processing device, forum members from a member community based, at least in part, on attributes of the forum members that provide an association with the subject matter; generating, by the processing device, a forum comprising the forum members selected from the member community, wherein the forum is configured to allow the forum members to post comments, and to respond to posted comments, in a threaded discussion comprising one or more sessions of the forum in which there is a substantial time lag between when the comments are posted and when the posted comments are responded to, and wherein the comments from the forum are stored and made available to the forum members for retrieval; initiating, by the processing device, a session of the forum configured to allow discussion associated with the request; receiving, by the processing device, a number of requests from more than one and less than all of the forum members to conclude the session; and terminating, by the processing device, the forum in response to determining that the number of requests exceeds a threshold number of requests to conclude the session.