Ask Slashdot: What Web Platform For a Small Municipality?

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 29, 2012 @07:50AM from the right-here-in-river-city dept.

First time accepted submitter r3dR0v3r writes "I have the opportunity to help improve / replace the website of my small U.S. town (~6000 people). The town leaders are open to most any suggestions, and are open to the idea of having the website facilitate a more open government — by being a place at which town documents, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, legal forms, ordinances, etc. can be found in an organized way and downloaded. And of course the site should provide general info about the town, it's services, recreation opportunities, etc.. Now, we have no budget, so we'll be looking at free/open software. I've considered options such as Drupal, but I'm doing this as volunteer work so I don't want to start from scratch and spend overly much time. Thus, I'm looking for advice about any existing platforms made specifically for municipalities as a great way to get a jump start. I'm guessing there are other slashdotters that have helped their communities in this way. Your suggestions please?"

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Code for America by Rinisari · 2012-11-29 08:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is where I pitch www.codeforamerica.org and see what it may offer!

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Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
1. Create a simple static html page by Spy+Handler · 2012-11-29 08:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

with info about the town that does not change (name, location info, some pictures, etc)
2. Create the town's Facebook page, populate it with dynamic data, and hand over control of the account to the town manager (or whoever)
3. Embed Facebook data into your static html page
You can go Drupal or Joomla but do you really want to be responsible for security and upkeep? Joomla in particular gets hacked a LOT. Drupal is a nightmare to train newbs how to use.