Portals

[Murder he Wrote]

When checking the Forum of the Month submissions this morning for rule breakers, one thing that really annoyed me was the amount of Portal pages I had to navigate my way through to get to the index page.

For me when I visit a forum, I'd like to know what the forum's about - not what the time is with some fancy flash clock, who the top posters are or who the "random member" is. The recent articles are good, granted. However, it's always like a maze trying to find the tiny little Forum Index link. If there is a portal, it really ought to scream out "This is what we're about...click here to go to the forums" in big, bold and noticable text. I've noticed in ForuMotion forums, to get to the index page from a portal you have to click "Home". eh? . Surely the page you land on first is considered as "home".

Same could be said for Forums with Website homepages. ForumPromotion's homepage isn't the best for accessibility to the forums, I accept that - but it seems to do the job.

Anyway what are your opinion of portals? A useful resource or a general annoyance?

Discuss.

 

[Mike]

A general annoyance a lot of the time, Portals with bad layouts and literally nothing important/no content on them are the worst, i'd much rather just go straight to the forum, and would probably put me off joining.

Good looking Portals with a purpose can be quite welcoming, and i don't mind them 🙂

 

[Callum93]

I'm not a huge fan of portals and I prefer sites without them, however some portals can look pretty decent and I don't mind them, though a lot of portals make navigation difficult.

 

[Midnight]

A general annoyance a lot of the time, Portals with bad layouts and literally nothing important/no content on them are the worst, i'd much rather just go straight to the forum, and would probably put me off joining.

Good lucking Portals with a purpose can be quite welcoming, and i don't mind them 🙂

I totaly agree, FP portal is good because it explain the services we offer, other forums such as gaming forums are lesss needed.

 

[Gimgak]

Most sites I would rather use without any portals, they are pretty annoying at times, and I agree with you on the forumotion portals. However, I think that the FP portal looks really good and is one of the best portals, telling you all the information you may want to know and it is easy to reach the forum.

 

[hcfwesker]

Yeah, to be honest; I actually wish advertisers here would actually use their forum link; instead of their portal link, no offesne. I just never look at anything on the portal; i wait for it to load, and immediately click the "Forum" button; when i find it.

And, lol, MhW .... i too have to play "Where's Waldo" looking for some forum's "Forum" button on their portal page.

What i can't stand most about some forums, is they have what's on the Portal page, posted as side bars throught out the entire forum, as well. That really is what drives me away.

.... vertical scrolling affiliates, scrolling top posters, calender .... it's EVERYWHERE -bigeyes-

 

[Zenrer]

I think people should not have portals, because they want to be taken right to the point of what they are doing there, which is talking on a forum, not scrolling around looking for the forum link on the portal page.

 

[Vader]

I think people should not have portals, because they want to be taken right to the point of what they are doing there, which is talking on a forum, not scrolling around looking for the forum link on the portal page.

I agree.

 

[Howard_Crane]

I use a portal because what I'm developing on the forum is going to be more than boards.

But on the left is a convenient forum navigation to go from category to category.
People come to websites for what they want, or what they want to share, they're not interested in anything else until they fulfill that initial desire... like people here immediately look for forums on a website. The other categories will still be there if they're curious.

But yeah, some websites don't need portals.
But FP is a forum that needs a portal.

 

[TheIlluminative]

I am not a fan of portals either , but if you forum is about Movies/Tv shows and Music portals is a must where you can write the latest POX office , the latest reviews and News.

this may attrack more visitors to check your forum.

 

[Lee Lawson]

To me i say portals are a quick jump really.
They have your announcements and latest articles and they have a few quick facts of the forum.
But why not just have a pop up tab with it saying latest articles and taking you to the last articles and what not.
SOme how i have to go 50:50 on both but if i were to choose one for the world it would be it's a general annoyance.

 

[agentmanningctu]

I hate portals. Unless the portal is PERFECT you should not have one.

 

[Kevin X Dragon]

For me it depends on how the owner use it. If the portal look great and it show good information but if not I hate it.

 

[Lee Lawson]

I would also say that HOME is a portal to.

 

[Rok]

Well, I agree with what MhW stated about suggesting users to have the accessibility of the forum index easy to find, but i think a little summary of the forum is pretty great to have. Also, having a simple homepage portal with like 3 navigation buttons that lead to the forum index, website, and the sponsored blog is okay to have because it's easy to navigate to redirectional sponsors of that forum. However, having the navigations located under deep designs and hard-to-find spaces isn't going to get your site/forum anything except an exit of your site page from a guest.

 

[Fullmoon]

I currently use a portal. I find it gives abit of depth to the site rather than just having a forum.

Eventually i will use the portal as more of a webpage than a portal

 

[Shahrier]

I really don't like portals which is why I don't enable it for my homepage

 

[Nebulous]

I dont really see the point in a portal. Your community members will probably just look for the 'Enter Forum' link anyways. I guess it depends on what you are doing though.

 

[Morgan]

i dont mind portals
i use them for stuff like announcments and affilicates etc

 

[Dylan]

I hate portals they put me off the forum and somtimes it is so unorganized I cannot find a link to the forum.