Slashdot Mirror
Starting Your Own Community Driven Website?
ST asks: "I've had a couple of excellent ideas for community-driven websites (a la Slashdot), some excellent enough that I would really like to put money into and start up, but my abilities can only do so much. Where does one go to look for people to collaborate with technical (hosting, DB management), artistic, and web design help? What have your web site startups been like, have you any advice to offer? Any horror or success stories you would care to share will be welcomed!"
> Well, obviously allowing anonymous posting is not a good idea, as it significantly lowers your signal to noise ratio
One could make an argument a site with <100 users doesn't have the same needs than a site with >100000 users has.
The first thing to do with a community site is: "Put something out there".
If you spend 12 months preparing this overly complex but oh so perfect site, you just lost 11 months of community-building time.
Start simple, with whatever is good enough to get by, and make things better as you go.
All of the tech details are important, but don't lose sight of the fact that you need something to attract people to the site. You can't just build out momentum. Sites that only get one or two posts a day get dismissed rather quickly by us fickle geek types as lame. The idea/need for the community should come first with the tech build around it to support it. Good luck!
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
First, find your community, then start a site for that community.
My wife and I were going through something personal, and visited a well-known community board to discuss the subject with other people with a similar problem. The people who used the board were terrific, but the organization running the board were absolutely awful; one of those communities that tries to fiercely restrict and censor the ongoing discussions based on arbitrary rules that are constantly in flux, while (we suspect) harvesting the email addresses of their subscribers for spam.
So, we started our own board, and a large number of people (nearly 100 in the first few days) joined our community. We've grown slowly ever since.
Why? Well, no unholy restrictions; we simply move poorly-placed posts to the appropriate locations and ask people to reconsider certain material that might emotionally disturb others (it's a sensitive subject that's being discussed).
Oh, and we're not trying to make any money, not even to cover our expenses (which are minimal). In short, we're part of the community we're trying to serve, and since we're not motivated by profit (direct or indirect) this community site has been a very easy and satisfying thing to create and maintain.
Second, use open source software with a good reputation and active development.
We use phpBB, and were up and running within a few hours of deciding to start the board. Once in a while we apply a security patch, and our web host does daily database backups, so it's been smooth sailing for quite a while.
Good luck.
Bandwidth is the real killer. With most products the more you sell the cheaper it becomes. Websites are the reverse. A small site can be run for free. A medium site will cost you. A big site will need some serious income to keep running.
Also add that bandwidth costs usually come AFTERWARDS and you can set yourselve up for a nasty suprise. Just be ready.
Server is another thing. You will be suprised how BAD websites scale in real life. That nice site that is so fast with a dozen visitors blows up when you get thousands because somebody posted a link to it on a popular site. Something called a dashslot effect or something.
Now server is a bit easier. A good second hand server ain't expensive at all and should if properly setup (PHP needs a phpcache) be capable of working for you until you get big. Just don't run it of an old PC.
Last but most killing for new website admins is burnout. You are going to have to deal with the worst kind of people in the entire history of mankind. Users. I bet the mother Teressa when she was online had a vocabulary that would make the devil blush. Users demand everything for nothing yesterday. I seen plenty of bright eyed hopefull people get totally depressed at having to deal with thousands of emails complaining about everything and nothing. Do not underestimate this. It is quit different from working as a paid punchbag and doing it as a hobby.
Oh and don't forget one thing, you are not going to reinvent the net. If everybody does something in way X, there may be a reason for it. Are you really building something new or just making "dashperiod stories for dorks, matters you can stuff"?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
OK, maybe this isn't helpful at all, but it's meant to be.
First things first: You don't want to develop a site; you want to develop a business model that doesn't cost a fortune to set up and has some vague, distant hope of making you money. Lesson 1: A community site is a tool, not a means to an end, unless you're in the religion, politics or *nix-is-better-than-windows evangelical categories.
OK, so a site's a tool. Next thing to consider: Why do you want to pay all the people you mention? You brought up hosing (OK, you'll likely have to pay for that), but also artistic and web-design help, as well as DB management. There are scores of portal-style, slashdot-style and blog-style software packages out there -- go play with 'em a little. Most of 'em have a range of skins/themes you can download that might not be perfect, but they're a start. And do you REALLY want to build a custom app before you even figure out if your community is going to take off? Lesson 2: Quit overthinking -- if you're building a community site, then get something out there and put your energy into promoting it. If there's a market for it, the community will tell you how to make the site perfect because (repeat after me) you'll ask them every chance you get.The greatest horror a new site -- or any new business -- faces is usually cash flow. Do you have enough money to pay the hosting bills? How long, in your worst nightmare, will it take the site to start making money? (Hint: Take that number, double it, and go up by one order of magnitude.) What are the quick ways to make money from the user base, what are ways to get additional money from users who have been around a while and what are the ways you can get long-term, sustainable income from the site? If you don't have multiple ideas for each category, you are going to hit a cash-flow problem. Lesson 3: Your great ideas are just that -- great ideas. But the thing is, great ideas are a dime a dozen; great execution is what makes people money. Have an execution plan.
This probably sounds discouraging, but it's meant to be just the opposite -- if you can do a little up-front planning, can resist the (very common) urge to overfret the technical details and over-buy from vendors/consultants, and can know in advance how you plan to convert eyeballs to money, then you'll likely see some success. These things are basic; it's just shocking how few people follow the basics. Disclaimer: I get paid to offer advice like this.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
Maybe a bit off-topic, but any great community will always revolve around some higher purpose. Site-design fades in comparison to that. I'm sure there are some great ready-made solutions available, many technical and financial problems to overcome, etc., but I just want to stress that without a great idea, it does not matter how well designed it is, except if you want to put it on your CV maybe.
It is the nature of an idea that is important! A great idea is original, meaning it was there 1st or does not clone another already existing idea. For every already existing alternative, your idea looses a bit of value. Even so, limited server capacity makes the possibility of several similar communities to co-exist side-by-side possible.
A second characteristic is the time-frame. People lose interest fast, so a system of self-renewal, preferably automatic, needs to be put in place. This can be external, e.g. the news, or internal, giving members the freedom and inspiration to contribute something to the site. The second, however, usually only follows the first, with small exceptions.
Finally, people have varying competencies and strengths, as well as weaknesses. In a project like this, it may be wise to build up a team of people who have skills in different areas. Some people are very creative and can help with the themes and ideas, others are technical and can help with the programming and hardware. As a community grows bigger, both areas need work, which can be too much for 1 person to handle.
All other issues fade in comparison to a great idea. With that, you can inspire people to help you out in the weaker areas. Just my free advice...
So all you really have to do is choose one of the three. (And unless you are going to include an audio version for the visually impaired, don't go with captcha.)
These were the questions I asked. I intended to setup a website for Australian mobile phone users - since no such website really existed.
.COM only cost $7.95/year (with GoDaddy), or $16.95/year if using registering via proxy (to avoid having to include home address, etc).
We spent several weeks researching hosts and experimenting with content management systems. This is what we ended up with:
Hosting - Shared hosting at Hostony.net. For around US$8/month, we got 1000M of space and around 35G of bandwidth, as well as the services we needed - such as MySQL databases, SSH, FTP, etc.
Choosing hosting was difficult - as not everyone offered all the features we needed - common problems were limitations on SQL databases, small space quotas, as well as setup fees when only on short term bill (we wanted preferably monthly payments so we could pull out whenever we needed if necessary. In the end we settled on 3 monthly payments).
Unfortunately the hosting service was unreliable - with many server reboots, timeouts, and complete outages. After complaining we were moved to a better server, which has delivered better performance (but still not up to scratch).
Content Management - we chose Postnuke and PhpBB (via the PNphpBB2 module) for Postnuke. Postnuke tended to offer the facilities we needed - although did have problems with things such as forum avatars and login sessions.
Domain name - this was easy - US domain name
The result : http://www.ausmobile.com
My advice? Don't spend up big, as the project may fail, and you will lose money.