Community building:Website

Overview

The things you need to do in order to start a community very much depend on what kind of community you are thinking of. Usually Internet communities are organized around a community website.

Mozilla is providing a system called Mozilla Community Sites (MCS) that is directed to help setting up a new website for a community. Because there are many different kinds of communities and different motivations for people to start a website it is very hard to deliver an ultimate solution for everyone.

Mozilla decided to provide a set of blocks that each webmaster can use to build a new website. Together with documentation below the experience of setting up a website should be a good learning experience without much pain. For those who don't feel like wanting to learn how webtool deployment works there will be a fully automated installer that will allow to create a website with just a several clicks of mouse.

There are three steps you have to follow in order to set up a website. You may request Mozilla assistance in each of them, or choose to challenge it by yourself depending on your experience, skills, and willing to learn new things.

Steps you cannot avoid

Hosting

You have to decide where your website files will actually be placed

Domain

You have to decide what URL address will let people open your website

Webapps

And finally, you have to decide what kind of website you will have

Then, optionally, you can extend the set of tools your community has by

Optional extended features

Emails

You may want to give community members email addresses and let people contact your community by email

Newsgroups

News groups are offering ability for people to communicate publicly much like forum, but they are independent to your website

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