Making a website to test esp - advice needed

[latent aaaack]

I am committed to making a website that would enable testing and recording of certain paranormal claims like precognition and those related to mind over matter. I'm a novice who only knows how to register an address, make a basic site using easy html software, or a site fitted with software like vbulletin.

What I need to know is how to make a site with social networking features such as those found on sites like care2.com where members can post a link and description to an article and viewers can vote it to the front page. http://www.care2.com/news/ . I know some choices are to pay a programmer(s) to do it, learn how to program it myself, or buy a pre-made social software package of some kind.

The sole goal of the website is to test and record esp, it wouldn't attempt to handle thousands of users and viewers, and wouldn't attempt to make money. But I would want a lot of control over how the site looked and its specific features.

What would be the cheapest way of accomplishing that?

Thank you for any introduction you can give because I didn't find much information aimed at building a site with these needs in mind.

 

[krelnik]

I can think of a couple of options that might be useful.

If you are mainly interested in the "post a link & vote on it" functionality, the folks at Reddit (a competitor to Digg and Mixx) just last month open sourced their product. That means you can download their code and make your own copy of their site.

If you are interested in other functionality, including social networking functions where people can interact on the site, you might look into a product/service called Ning. This product allows you to customize their software and use it to create your own website. The recently launched Atheist Nexus was built using this product.

Hope that helps.

 

[six7s]

If I have correctly interpreted your wants/needs, then I think/know that - for the site to be successful - it will need active input from MANY people

With that in mind, I suggest you start as you aim to continue; enlist support NOW

Oh... I guess you already have, simply by posting here

OK... next step, spread the word, via this and other forums...

Hey... maybe you should ask a telepath to spread the idea, too!