A role is a job function that is used to grant specific permissions in a forum. The possible roles are shown in Table 2.
Role
Privileges
Answerer
Can mark and unmark any reply as the answer to a question
Moderator
Answerer privileges, plus the ability to edit, move, merge, delete, and split threads, clear abuse flags, and edit or delete individual replies
Owner
Moderator privileges, plus the ability to assign roles to users. The owner(s) also have the responsibility for overall heath of the forum.
Administrator
Owner privileges, plus the ability to create forum sites, start, edit, and delete announcements, ban users, and assign profanity filters
Table 2: Forum Roles
Forums Help (FAQ) (en-US) http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/7359.forums-help-faq-en-us.aspx The Different Roles in MSDN and TechNet Forums http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/9380.the-different-roles-in-msdn-and-technet-forums.aspx
Richard Mueller edited Revision 5. Comment: Added "See Also" section and links
Richard Mueller edited Revision 3. Comment: Added Administrator role
Richard Mueller edited Revision 2. Comment: Expand description of Moderator role
Richard Mueller edited Revision 1. Comment: Clarify Answerer privilege, added tags