What's the best way to build a user-modifiable website?

December 29, 2008 1:26 PM

What is the best way to build a user-modifiable website these days? I want to make a website organized around a certain theme (the DRM associated with given PC games), and would like to set it up so users can easily add or modify information about specific games.

I haven't tried to build a website in about 5 years, and I know things have changed a bit since then. I have the vague idea that it would make sense to build on top of an existing system, like MediaWiki or whatever. I have access to linux-based (VM with full access) hosting, and I don't intend to make a particularly huge website, just one that fulfills the specific goal of answering "Does this game have DRM?". Also, it would be nice to be able to compile the metadata into reports (like all games with Securom).

Anyone have suggestions for building this kind of website?

posted by JZig to computers & internet (8 comments total)

http://wordpress.com/signup/

You can do it blog style. Each post will be about a particular game. This will be search engine friendly, local search friendly, and easy to manage and edit.

You can use tags a post with something like "securom", and then easily pull up all games with that tag.
posted by avex at 1:33 PM on December 29, 2008

Definitely wiki. In fact, this question could almost be reworded as "What're the currently popular wiki options?"
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:33 PM on December 29, 2008

Seconding a wiki structure, from the description you gave of what you want to do. Not that wordpress is a bad idea, just that your description sounds like a wiki is better adapted.

Having some of the data be structured so it can be automatically compiled into reports could maybe be handled by stuff like MediaWiki's categories support (eg, you'd have a category "Games using SecuROM"). Mediawiki's kind of overkill most of the time; there might be a simpler wiki that has those features.
posted by hattifattener at 1:38 PM on December 29, 2008

Google Sites is what you're looking for. (Read about it here.)
posted by nitsuj at 1:39 PM on December 29, 2008

Yeah, wiki does sound about right. What's the state of the art for wikis these days? (ie, what tommorowful said).
posted by JZig at 1:43 PM on December 29, 2008

If a wiki doesn't work for you, you might check out Plone. Not sure if it'd suit your purposes, though.
posted by NoraReed at 2:57 PM on December 29, 2008

Check the wiki tag; "which wiki?" is an oft-addresses MeFi question.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:59 PM on December 29, 2008

Wikia seems somewhat popular as a wiki solution for game-related topics.
posted by so_necessary at 8:33 AM on December 30, 2008