Portals?

[Scott]

A lot of forums (including this one) have a portal as the first page. However, many of them, such as WHT, don't have anything.

A portal can be pretty useful to emphasise key threads and to integrate different parts of the forum (a gallery, perhaps). Personally, I'm not sure whether I like them or not, sometimes I think they can be pretty difficult to fill up with content.

Do you use a portal on your site? If so, why? If no, have you ever considered using one?

[SoftWareRevue]

I think you're right that a portal has to serve a purpose.

We have it here, because we plan on featuring certain articles there.

We, also wanted to be prepared should we expand. And it would be much better going from a poor portal to a portal, than from no portal to a portal. :)

[CD Burnt]

I don't care for them, and bookmark directly into the forums (if they interest me).

[writespeak]

I think their main value is for people viewing the forum for the first time. When I land at a new (for me) forum and there's no introduction, I can't see the focus of the forum at a glance. A portal page provides an introduction and makes key information easier to find.

For regulars, going directly into the forum is probably the usual path.

Lois

[Tyler]

I don't care for them, and bookmark directly into the forums (if they interest me).

Ditto, I do the same with FU as well. :dancin:

[CD Burnt]

if the forum is an important part of the site, it's a design flaw , IMO, if there is NOT a large obvious button/textlink/pathway/whatever on the main page, so people can 'find' the forum easily.

obvious and easy.

[cyberturk]

if your site would have static content you must have html pages or integrated portals. I am using different portals for my forums.

For example:

I am using mkportal for my SMF forum. This site is a fan page of an artist so there are galleries, news and download section. So portal is a must. This portal has a lot of powerfull options but it is not suitable for big comminites. Because using so much cpu on the server.

We are using Unreal portal ( a aimple portal plug-in for ipb) on a mobile site. We have news on the index and recent topics block, etc. It is usefull for most of forums, because if you have news section, it gives a good frontpage for that topics.

[westcan]

As an end user:

I hate portals. Why? Because it's just another layer of crap I have to click through to find what I really want, which is the true forum index.

There are a couple specific issues I have with portals, too.

1. I don’t need a script to decide which threads are hot, important, or featured; I’ll decide what I want to read by scanning the forum.

2. A large majority of the portals I come across seem to share one similar thing -- look at the latest news/update post and what do you see?


Posted: March 3rd 2004


This does two things: 1. it gives me an initial impression that the forum/site is dead 2. the forum management don’t care or have enough material to update it further.

[DavidL]

I like portals if I can find an easy way into the forums. I use a portal on my site because of future enhancements and most future changes will not even be forum specific. I like the idea of being able to add blocks easily and move them around without having to do much coding.

[Mikey]

I think if you're just operating a forum, you don't really need a portal. However, if your forum is just a side-attraction, a portal is a good idea.

[robert]

For most communities, a portal is completely useless. Most of the time, users just want to get to the main content -- the forums -- and start reading and contributing to them. However, if you serve up articles or news often and don't like to do that sort of stuff within the forum (personally, I'd just do it in the forum), a portal can be alright, but I feel these cases are few and far between. When a true content "management" system is needed to manage a collection of articles, comments, and perhaps news, a true CMS should be used -- not some pseudo-CMS "portal" thing.

[spechackers]

i donot like portals, coz i like the plain way the forum being.