Deciding to have 'Just a Forum' or not

[TheDPQ]

This springs from the When did you join your first forum and why (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/showthread.php?t=710)? discussion.

When setting up your own forums did you ever consider being more then 'just a forum'? Sometimes we see sites that have forums, and sometimes we see forums with a lot of extra 'details'.

The forum i administer was originally just a forum, sold, upgrades to gallery + Tutorials, sold, ignored, sold, downgraded to 'just a forum'.

Even with the gallery (which did start a sub community) most users consider us 'just a forum' with 'features' for the members.

How would you describe your forum setup and why you decided to go down that path.

[Jan]

All forums I mod/admin at are "just a forum" and I don't know of any site that I regularly visit that also has a forum, so I'm not much help :P

[Scott]

I think it depends on what the owner is after when they start out. If the idea of the site is to just have discussions about a certain topic, sure, only a forum might work well. If on the other hand the point is to provide information about a product or service, a forum probably isn't the greatest medium to use.

There are exceptions, and some people have very nice sites which offer services and using only a forum.

I often find a portal is a good intermediate. It can introduce the point of the site without taking too much time to setup.