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Starting Your Own Community Driven Website?

Posted by Cliff on from the looking-before-you-leap dept.

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!"

1 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. I have a suggestion or two by DaveJay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.