Hello Lab Rats!
Hey there, I'm new around here and I just wanted hi 
I'm an avid, avid, avid Portal fan and I love checking out user created content. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at Portal so hit me with your best shot! However, you should know that I'm only able to play maps that are submitted as a BMZ (Bonus Map Zip) file. So if you want me to review your map you'll need to upload it in that fashion. BMZs are much easier to use and play anyways so it's a better format altogether. It's not terribly hard to convert a map to BMZ, here's the instructional guide: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Bonus_Maps
Anyways, enough BMZ propaganda. I'm very excited to be a member of this community and I hope to play your creations soon!
First, hi and welcome. We have an "introductions" thread but whatever.
BMZ files are alright, however they do present some huge technical issues when it comes to custom content - textures, sounds, etc.
Please do not Private Message me for assistance. Post a thread if you have questions or concerns.
If you need to contact the staff privately, contact the Global Moderators via Discord.
What do you mean you can ONLY play BMZ maps? That doesn't make any sense at all.
and i hate people who use .bmz's i usually end up with a shit load of extra folders i don't need, i usually just rename them .zip and open/manually extract everything
Sorry msleeper, I snooped around the forum for a while before joining and posting but I guess I missed that 
Thanks for the genuine welcome, though, I wish Hober was as hospitable 
About the BMZs, something is wrong with my portal game, and at the moment it is only letting me load user-created content through BMZs. I'm sorry if I came off a little strong on the BMZs, I haven't actually mapped with Portal yet (I've worked a lot with other engines, like Unreal, just haven't cracked open Hammer yet) so I wasn't aware of the limitations, or complications, of the BMZ format.
Anyways, glad to be here, and I hope to learn more about portal and mapping and whatnot