Managing discussion threads within an electronic communication system includes detecting that an electronic message sent from a sender to a first recipient is forwarded from the sender to a second recipient and, responsive to the detecting, identifying at least one electronic message related to the forwarded message exchanged between the sender and the second recipient as a virtual discussion thread. A client is notified of that the virtual discussion thread exists and is correlated with the electronic message from the sender. The virtual discussion thread is provided to the client of the first recipient.