Prototype Site - Quote and advice requested

[hunt.chris]

Hello all,

I am a recent college graduate working full time in the corporate world. I have a new idea I wish to pursue and really want to get this out there and see where it will go. Here are the absolute basics:

-Community driven website where users can sign up and create a profile to begin using the site
-Users can post content to main page and each piece of content has a comments section for discussions related to post
-each post has a rating system, higher votes means more exposure on front page

This site idea is similar to many existing communities (reddit, digg, etc...) I do have differentiating factors, the above list is simply the very basics that I need the site to do.

Aside from quotes, I would appreciate any ideas on the best way to execute this. I have the domain name registered and capital ready to invest into this project. I have web design background however it has been a few years and not 100% up-to-date anymore. Still totally excited however

Happy to answer any and all questions!

[Fumigator]

You will be hiring a firm to build the website then? Be careful-- "cheapest" can be the most expensive in the long run. I've seen people with a crapptastically built website which they sunk a couple grand into trying to get their website just to the point where it can be published, and it costs another couple grand to pay someone else to fix the mess the first couple grand created.

I would recommend you try to use someone local to build the website, and don't believe that family friend who tells you they can do it for almost nothing. (That's probably what you'll end up with-- almost nothing.)

It really does sound like your website is a Wiki at the heart of it. You may save a lot of time and money if you use a wiki framework and customize from there. I've been using Dokuwiki at work and it's pretty good, and even free. It may be worth your time to check it out.