[Martin-Subbynet]

Originally Posted by OldWelshGuy

Cost of contribute is expensive though, as you need Dreamweaver to build the original site don't you?

Well the designer would need Dreamweaver - not you.

Also if as mentioned there will be a backup person, then that means having two copies of contribute. Bit of a sledghammer to crack a nut really don't you think? This is a non profit site after all

Its about a £100 for one person, so about £200 for two... Really its not a huge expense considering the quality would be much better.

[OldWelshGuy]

I agree with you Martin, but I understood that the same person is designing it as maintaining it, so couldn't see the need for contribute

If one person is building the site and maintaining it, then obviously DW is an easy option if they know the package, and that would be the road I would go down.

But due to plugins etc joomla is ideal for community sites also, and is free.

I guess it is a case of horses for courses though

[Martin-Subbynet]

Yeah defo Joomla is an option, I have to admit I'm not the greatest fan of it myself, or pretty much any CMS where its normally turns out a obviously a Joomla, Drupal, OSC site etc...

Kind of like "Identikit" web sites sometimes. Mind you saying that some designers can pull off good stuff with them.

[awebapart]

Another option for a free (free as in advertiser driven) community site is to create your own social network site on www.ning.com

Examples of community sites using this platform include:

www.montpelier.ning.com
www.montpeliervillage.ning.com

OK if you're promoting the site in other ways apart from search engines (especially if it is a local community word of mouth thing), and you could always use a different domain name and redirect (if you don't like the ning.com part).