Do You Have a Portal on Your Forum?

I agree ashley, it may look nice but really there is no use for..

 

To be honest, the only time I can see a portal being absolutely necessary is if it were to be strictly a business forum. And I don't mean anything forum promotion related either, like a site that's strictly dedicated to a business, like a local shop or something. Then if that case, say if the forum was about a local shop, the portal in question could probably have something like upcoming sales, discounts, events going on for Senior Citizens, and stuff like that. Anything not strictly business related, I wouldn't say a forum is needed for those kinds of things.

 

I see what you are saying, yea portal can come in handy for things like that.

 

My portal is essential for my forum. We're an RP forum and it's the place where I can lay out information that is going to be essential to the various RPs and interests we share. The global chat room is generally kept there so that it doesn't appear on the footer of every other forum. There are links to fandom encyclopedias there. There are links to our personal live streams there. Lots of board statistics. Contact information for the forum. Rules. Guidelines. Stating that we have adult and mature content. It is necessary and it's not going anywhere any time soon. If someone is shallow enough to bypass it but for the fact that it isn't technically part of the forum then it's not my problem if they find themselves surprised by the mature or adult content and conversations that occur in site. We don't post or share porn or anything but our stories do have blood and death and mentions of sex. It serves as a strong caveat for users under 16 who are visiting.

 

I see nothing wrong with a portal if its important part to your forum which would depend on you niche, and for a RP forum it is very much needed, I only complain about portals when there is no need for them. If you have a need for it than why not?

 

I edited my post; if you could edit yours to reflect my edit, that would be nice. I rarely get wording right the first time I write something and I often come off more intense than I intend to. So usually after posting, I edit. I just want to make sure people know what I intended. Thanks.

And yeah, it's mostly because people here keep saying "there's no use for it" when there clearly is. Personal opinion doesn't negate the fact that there are tons of uses for portals and that not bothering with one can come off as disrespectful as it does to me when I specifically put important information there.

 

No problem, it happens

 

I used to have one, but as others have mentioned was not much use, and members rather just have the forum by itself thats why I removed it.

 

At first I wanted to make it but then I saw that I can't do what I wanted and gave up on the idea.
Portals are great ideas but you have to customize them a lot to get to a good looking portal.

 

Yea, I agree, a bog standard, over cluttered portal looks absolutely rubbish, and defeats the purpose of the forum, however if you make your portal look unique and have decent content on it, then it's bound to be a success.

For example, I once designed a portal that was tabbed and included most things that the community desired at the time.

 

Yea, and depending on which portal use it can be hard to customize it to fit your needs.

 

I do not really like the portals on forums, I would rather have a built site rather then the default portals.

 

I do have a portal on my forum, and I have my site URL, www.enigmachs.com, go to it directly. It really helps showcase the best content on my forum like guides, blog posts, and forum announcements.

 

I used to use a portal on 360Elites when it ran vBulletin (I ran vBAdvanced), but when I moved to MyBB, I started using a wordpress homepage integrated with the forum. I used the homepage to post all the Xbox news and reviews and stuff as it allowed me much more control over layout and styling for individual posts.

 

vBAdvanced I would say is the best vbulletin portal. And Yea I prefer WordPress over a portal any day for use as a home page, its so much better.

 

To me, portal pages are not only distracting but confusing. Often, the portal page is so cluttered with 'site news' and other information, it's hard to find the forum links.

Though portal pages serve the forum owner (or webmaster's) purpose, they are just not convenient for the visitor. And, if the forum isn't for the visitor's benefit and convenience, then what good does it serve?

 

Tell me about it, most of the forums I see that have a portal are in fact filled with so many things it does make it hard to find the link to take you straight to the forum, and I go find them confusing at times.

 

I won't deny that many are over cluttered and the fact that a lot of forums have terrible themes doesn't help. Just try to keep in mind that not all portals are like that. =|

 

I use a portal on my forum, I think they say a lot about the community. A person can view threads and posts with out ever opening up a forum category and get a general feel for your forum. And on the other hand it can scare them away!

 

Well they can also view new threads and posts by click the "new posts" or "what's new" link. And yes portals can scare members away, I have seen some hideous ones which have made me just leave.