I really cant stand when I visit a forum and the first thing I see is a standard vbadvanced with a few modules added. As a guest I dont want to know the statistics, at least not to that degree and then I need to spend about 30 seconds half the time looking for a link to the forums. I think homepages/portals should only really be used when you can offer some very good content there, like here on AA. If that was filled with stats, welcome to the site etc I would seriously have been turned off. What makes it worse, I notice a lot of these sites are black, or dark in theme which just adds to the headache of finding the forums link with nauseating green links and whatnot. They can be nice as I have seen some very custom ones but if they didnt have good content like articles etc I would have left instantly. So, do you like portals/homepages yourself? What are your thoughts on those forums that use them?
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of portals, particularly when used incorrectly (or uselessly). It's just another step that you need to go through before entering the actual "meat" of the discussion community.
Yes, exactly! It's just an "extra" step that is not necessary... in some cases. If the portal were to be integrated extremely nicely, I'd feel differently.
I think it goes the same for the SE's having to digg deeper to find the content. Thats why links on homepages are generally better than one stuck ten levels down.
I definitely dislike pointlessly added portals. Seriously, so many off topic and gaming forums have them, yet they're never really used to add anything to the actual site, just a bunch of news from an announcements forum and a tiny link to the actual forum index.
Or, they simply install the portal and leave it "as-is", failing to configure it and/or use it for anything - it's pretty much there for the "appearance".
That's probably what many of them have done, since the standard layout is so easy to spot. But hey, I've never used a portal modification, so I'm not actually sure what the 'default' actually looks like compared to most portals I've seen.
I don't like homepages/portals when all it has is stuff from the forum on, like latest threads etc. If I want to know that I'll just go in the forum. I only like them when they have a lot of stuff on it that isn't on the actual forum.
I don't really see the point of them either. Why have a separate section for news when ideally you want your users to post and discuss the news events in the forum?
Right now I am using wordpress for my portals/landpages - but they have "real" content on them. The vbadvanced thing is a lot boring. Especially when people do not put a link to the forum on the home page. I find myself saying - "I know there is a forum around here "somewhere", but where is it?"
I'd be keen to know what you guys think of my Mummybrain.com portal. It's got a lot of custom info, winner of last photo comps, blog posts etc - to advertise all the things we provide. I would love to know your feedback, as i've tried hard to make it good.
I have a portal page on my Forum, It is 100% needed as this is where Server, Teamspeak and Xfire status are displayed as well as our affiliation and tool links. I know what your saying but there is a time and place for Portals my members and staff feel it is required and so do I. Maybe it's different for gaming boards or just a matter of taste. My forum, portal and home page are dark purely because most gamers play in restricted light to get the most from their game and the last thing you want when you come from a dark game is to be blinded by a bright forum
I do think that the only good thing about a portal is it telling the users the latest threads and content etc. Meaning they dont have to go looking for the new stuff which is good, but I think this can be intergrated onto the forum itself or just above it. Sometime it works sometimes it doesnt, like most things it "depends". S33ker.
There's nothing wrong with portals if they contain useful information, and from the sound of your site's portal, it does contain information about server status that would be a benefit to your users. The criticisms in this topic are about default portals added for the sake of having them.
I've been using vBadvanced for over a year now. I really think that it's not a great option to have since WordPress is out there. My new homepage (WordPress) should be ready soon and I'm hoping to debut it in the next week or two As far as portals, I think that they serve a good purpose as long as you are adding content or features. But, I understand the other side of the argument with just getting to the 'meat' of the site.
