How to build a family website?

A blog might be the easiest thing for all of you. You could easily buy a domain name and then use blogger.com's or wordpress.org's simple interface to operate it. You don't need to install WordPress or Moveable Type for a blog just for your family. If you guys end up being some sort of famous blog and you want more control over your site that blogger.com or wordpress.org allows, then you can move your blog over to one of the other platforms.

http://www.myfamily.com does much of what you're asking for. The only thing it doesn't do is allow members to have their own seperate pages...or at least, I don't believe it does.

So let me get this straight, you're trying to build an interactive family website? (sorry, I couldn't help myself!) There are a number of ways you could skin this cat. Forum software like phpBB would be one way. That would excel in the "thread-like discussion" areas, but maybe not so much in the "I just want family members to be able to edit free-form web pages" department. Another route would be something like Wordpress + plugins. With WP being so popular these days you can find plugins to do just about anything. A third route would be a full CMS like Drupal. This will probably have the hardest learning curve but the most power. It could be overkill though. In any case, from what you've said you have most certainly departed from the realm of "just edit plain HTML+CSS files with a text editor." To get the kind of interactivity needed for allowing discussion threads and the like you really need to turn to scripts, be they PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, whatever.

My suggestion for this is to set up a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki site. Using this software would allow you to make pages on the fly, and allow users with access (which you would set up) to edit or add on to these pages - much like a threaded view of a discussion. They could also create their own pages very easily, with their own content. There is a lot of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software you could use for this site. The only downside I see is that it's one of the more complicated programs to install. Good luck!

I created a Wiki site for my family to share personal stories and family history, but I discovered that the family members felt that it was too complicated to use. They (especially elderly members) preferred to write what they had to say by email, and these entries never made it into the Wiki. So, my suggestion isn't any particular software, just some advice that you think carefully about your family members, their technical skills and comfort level with different types of interfaces. What will work best to encourage them to participate in your web site?

I started a family website four years ago and it has had mixed success. The biggest hurdles I have experienced are technology related. Family members lose their password, forget how to post, and can't figure out how to edit existing posts. My goal when setting up the site was to get my family members to post to a website instead of forwarding multiple articles a day. I would suggest that you first get a good sense of the tech level of all of your possible website contributors and then use that to find the right solution. Although a wiki would be awesome, I know that my family would have a hard time figuring out how to write posts in the unique wiki format. My family has gone from a website with a forum to a hosted blog solution (Typepad). The advantage of a hosted blog is that there is someone your family members can contact other than you with tech problems. One of the disadvantages is that the whole world can see your postings, not just your family members. My family has had some problems with random people trying to take over over the blog in the last year. If I was creating a dream family website, it would have to the ability to create posts just for family members and for the general public. You would also be able to upload files, pictures, comments and articles through e-mail. It would be great to include a Google map mashup with family member locations and favorite places and also a chat function. There also should be a good way of archiving important posts into a wiki-type knowledge base. Best of luck finding the right solution. If you decide to install your own blog software, I recommend Wordpress. For a wiki, MediaWiki is great. For a bulletin board, I would shy away from phpBB and look for a simpler solution. My family had a tough time with phpBB.

Not much to add, just that I hear the jotspot wiki system allows users to http://www.jot.com/wiki/5-wiki-email-integration.php, so perhaps that could work if you did the moderation. I haven't tried it though.

Just something to add. If you want to setup something feature rich, using something like http://www.xoops.org/ might be worthwhile. You can integrate http://www.xoops.org/modules/repository/ into it making it easy to administrate as well as keeping a common theme among all the sections. Many nice open source web softwares have been ported into XOOP modules and once the time is put in up front getting it setup, the administration part of it is pretty easy.

Check out http://www.jot.com/gallery/wiki-life.php - a family-targeted wiki