hosting a mefi clone?

January 18, 2006 3:31 PM

Thinking about creating a website very similar to Metafilter. Have no php/mysql skills. What's the platform/CMS that comes closest to replicating the MeFi experience without requiring a lot of tech skills?

Requirements: Ability to post on the front page, user comments inside. One site only (no subsites). User accounts. Decent mod. capability. I've looked at the packages referenced on the MeFi wiki and on Wikipedia and they probably aren't turnkey enough. I'm more comfortable with a Wordpress/Drupal type solution, though the ideal would be something like Blogger that's totally plug and play. Thanks!

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Monkeyfilter, MeFi's distant cousin, uses Metaphilter as a code base. The Sourceforge site seems to be down; you might talk to the site's admin Tracy, who is also a Metafilter user (tracicle).
posted by Rothko at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2006

Phpfilter is holloways project, and apparently he'd like to see metafilter use it.
posted by puke & cry at 4:21 PM on January 18, 2006

eh, phpilfer
posted by puke & cry at 4:22 PM on January 18, 2006

also, those are the only links that are still good on the wiki page for mefi clones.
posted by puke & cry at 4:52 PM on January 18, 2006

You could always get a copy of ColdFusion on the Pirate Bay if you don't have any coding experience and want to really replicate the (JRUN!) user experience.

:)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:52 PM on January 18, 2006

Digg is very similar to MetaFilter, and there's an open source clone of Digg floating around which seems to be quite popular and well updated at the moment.
posted by wackybrit at 5:37 PM on January 18, 2006

I don't see why WordPress wouldn't be a good choice; I use it to run a Montana-based blog with several dozen registered users and never had a problem. (www.bigskyblog.com)
posted by davidmsc at 5:54 PM on January 18, 2006

I once used wordpress for a metafilter clone and it took surprisingly few modifications to get it to work. It already has multi-level user accounts. I think the few modifications I did was to make sure users couldn't delete comments and that users of the same level couldn't edit each others posts.
posted by skallas at 6:19 PM on January 18, 2006

MetaChat apparently uses b2evolution, and I find it to be very MetaFilter-like.
posted by killdevil at 6:33 PM on January 18, 2006

there's an open source clone of Digg floating around which seems to be quite popular and well updated at the moment

Link?
posted by jjg at 6:45 PM on January 18, 2006

wackybritt may be talking about pligg is 'open source content management system based on the look and feel of digg.com'. (Looks like you get the code from the forum.)

I'd go with Wordpress, myself, though - easy to bend into a MetaFilterish shape without needing mad PHP skills.
posted by jack_mo at 2:33 AM on January 19, 2006

ExpressionEngine would work, too.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:15 AM on January 19, 2006

Also bear in mind that MoFi has been experiencing some stability problems recently and tracicle is considering a full rewrite of the code. So I'd avoid Metaphilter.
posted by blag at 6:29 AM on January 19, 2006