Best bloggish software for mini-faq creation?

January 3, 2009 1:20 PM

Looking for a bloggy-CMS or other free tool to make a FAQ-type site.

I have a domain and free storage and I'm looking to make a little faq site for a niche topic. However, I'd like it to have community features and not write all the content myself. I've previously used WordPress, MoveableType and Blogger to do various things and I'm comfortable with all of them but I want to make sure there's not a great tool I'm missing. I'm looking for a tool that will allow me to

- have an AskMe type blog format for posting Q&A stuff - i.e. users contribute questions, but it's okay if the questions come in via email or a comment form this will NOT be a high traffic site
- allow commenters to have little profiles and, if possible, log in using OpenID so they don't have to set up a bunch of crap just to comment
- maybe light voting stuff along the lines of "this comment was helpful" and flagging for stuff that's spammy or crappy but I don't need a digg clone.
- have some decent tweakable templates that look okay
- open source is a plus

If WP/MT/Blogger can do this with the right plug-in, feel free to let me know. I'm a little gunshy of Drupal because of the learning curve but if there's a perfect module, let me know. I'm also not against KM type systems but don't have much experience with them. Must be hosted on my site, must be customizeable, must be free or have low one-time costs.

I'm still in the fact-finding part of this endeavor so I may wind up doing somethign totally different but this is what I'm thinking about lately, project-wise. I did look at the other questions labeled FAQ on AskMe but didn't see anything perfect. Thank you!

posted by jessamyn to computers & internet (4 comments total)

phpmyFAQ?
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 3:04 PM on January 3

wordpress.com
posted by avex at 4:01 PM on January 3

OpenID - With Wordpress I've had good luck with this OpenID plugin. Allows for registration of new users via OpenID or just for people to leave comments.

Profiles - In the past I've used the Profiler plugin to be able to display a list of members of the site and their individual profile. I did have to dig into the code of the plugin to make it display things a bit differently (actually in combo with the Diso Profile plugin), but in a pinch it would probably be okay. A quick look over at wordpress.org isn't turning up anything better unless I'm overlooking it.

Comment Rating - SezWho has a plugin for Wordpress that allows rating of comments, sort of Digg/Reddit style.
posted by austinetsu at 8:37 PM on January 3

I'm really impressed by the lastest revision of Wordpress, even if I'm still not in love with the way templating works. There is no denying that all of the development buzz these days tends to be around it as a platform, and you can build something very nice and very flexible in terms of functionality with the free stuff out there in the community. The way that you can download, install, and update plugins from within the interface now is a revelation -- excellent for finding plugins and testing out new functionality.

After years of Moveable Type use (and still using it for a couple of my older, established sites that I'm basically too lazy to port the designs for), I've been using WP for all my little projects, both personal and for other people, lately.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:04 PM on January 4