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Best CMS for a community website

by jimjones
10 replies
Hi,

I am looking for a CMS to start a community website (publish articles, comment articles, publish videos, forum, users have own blogs/pages, etc). One big feature I need is "gamification". If you know stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, you know what I mean. I want that the users can earn points for everything they do on the website. Getting points forum activity or getting points for posting comments on articles, etc. Being an active part of the community should be rewarded with points.

Any recommendations for a CMS?

Thanks
#cms #community #gamification #points #website
  • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
    There are quite a few "StackOverflow-esque" CMS's out there:

    OSQA | The Open Source Q&A System
    Question2Answer Q&A
    LampCMS Open Source Question Answer program

    I haven't personally used any of these, but after briefly looking at each they all seem to delivery the same thing ( for the most part ). Not sure how customizable they are, my guess would be fairly but who knows. Granted these all focus primarily on the Q&A aspect of this type of site.

    If you don't want to go that route, you're probably going to have to use a highly specialized theme to use on top of a CMS like WP/Drupal/Joomla - or make the modifications yourself.

    Beyond that, I'm not entirely sure! It really depends on what aspect is most important to you. I'm sure there are a number of plugins for any CMS out there to add point system and "gamification" to your user system.

    Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Vendzilla
    I would look at phpfox, I've talked to people that have used it and I'm considering it myself due to the fact it's laid out like Facebook, which means people will already know how to use it.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    You could probably use Joomla with Jomsocial and develop gamification plugins, or see if there are any available. I had to turn away a client that wanted something similar, because he insisted on using typo3 and that's a nightmare. Can't imagine that working out.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vendzilla
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      You could probably use Joomla with Jomsocial and develop gamification plugins, or see if there are any available. I had to turn away a client that wanted something similar, because he insisted on using typo3 and that's a nightmare. Can't imagine that working out.
      I looked at the Joomla set up, it really is lacking. The site I'm taking over is in Joomla and I want it to look more like Face Book.

      PHPFOX is open source I believe, so just hire a programmer to make any changes you like if you don't know how to do it yourself
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by Vendzilla View Post

        I looked at the Joomla set up, it really is lacking. The site I'm taking over is in Joomla and I want it to look more like Face Book.

        PHPFOX is open source I believe, so just hire a programmer to make any changes you like if you don't know how to do it yourself
        Well Joomla is open source too, I think out of the box, Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal need extending. The Jomsocial extension is probably the way to go IF you were using Joomla.

        I'll have to look into PHPFOX, I've used a lot of platforms but never that.

        There's a codecanyon script that has a script that's just like facebook.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
    You're using it. vBulletin.

    GRM
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    I Coach: Learn More | My Latest WF Thread: Dead Domains/ Passive Traffic

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  • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
    There seems to be some confusion as to exactly what it is you want... a "community site" is a broad term. I took away that you were looking for something along the lines of Stackoverflow, Vendzilla got something like Facebook, GRM is thinking forum-centric. Could you perhaps clarify a bit more?

    Also if you ARE looking for something forum-centric, I would recommend IP Board over vBulletin - but that's a recommendation based on a year or two ago when vB was struggling to stay up to date with things. Not sure if or how they've improved since. IPB and vB can both create fairly robust sites, not simply a forum, although that is definitely their primary focus. They are however both paid software.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vendzilla
      Originally Posted by Vin Venture View Post

      There seems to be some confusion as to exactly what it is you want... a "community site" is a broad term. I took away that you were looking for something along the lines of Stackoverflow, Vendzilla got something like Facebook, GRM is thinking forum-centric. Could you perhaps clarify a bit more?

      Also if you ARE looking for something forum-centric, I would recommend IP Board over vBulletin - but that's a recommendation based on a year or two ago when vB was struggling to stay up to date with things. Not sure if or how they've improved since. IPB and vB can both create fairly robust sites, not simply a forum, although that is definitely their primary focus. They are however both paid software.
      To me a community site is more about being like Facebook. Forums are not as popular as they use to be
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      • Profile picture of the author jimjones
        Hi,

        thanks for all the replies.

        I have the following in my mind:
        A player driven gaming community where people can write articles, forum posts, comments and reviews, publish videos, etc.
        Everything will be rewarded with points. These points will be the currency of this community and can later be exchanged something (game keys, hardware).

        Something that comes close to my idea is:
        - Wordpress with following plugins:
        - BuddyPress (for community features like groups, profile pages)
        - bbPress (Forum)
        - myCred-Plugin (for points system)

        Maybe you have some better recommendations for that purpose.

        Thanks
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        • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
          Originally Posted by jimjones View Post

          Hi,

          thanks for all the replies.

          I have the following in my mind:
          A player driven gaming community where people can write articles, forum posts, comments and reviews, publish videos, etc.
          Everything will be rewarded with points. These points will be the currency of this community and can later be exchanged something (game keys, hardware).

          Something that comes close to my idea is:
          - Wordpress with following plugins:
          - BuddyPress (for community features like groups, profile pages)
          - bbPress (Forum)
          - myCred-Plugin (for points system)

          Maybe you have some better recommendations for that purpose.

          Thanks
          Given that description, I would recommend looking into vBulletin or IP Board. They're both designed to create sites that support all that. If you're not looking to spend any money on the site though, I would take some time to look through everything they offer and try to find components of another CMS ( such as WP ) that can offer the same functionality. The problem with that though is there won't be the same level of unity across all components as you would get if you went with a system built explicitly with all those things in mind.
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