WordPress.com

1. esperantabs
   Member
   Oct 13, 2010, 8:39 AM

   Hi,,

   I am looking to have a large site developed for my University students. I have a quote from a WordPress webdesigner saying its possible to make a complex comunity site. Another quote comes from a developer who is willing to write the code from scratch but is charging double the amount in comparison to the wordpress person.

   The website will be supporting over 20 000 members. it basically is going to function a little like facebook.

   What is your advice on this? and do you reckon worpress can handle a large comunity???

   Thanks

2. tandava108
   Member
   Oct 13, 2010, 10:06 AM

   If you are talking about a large interactive community like facebook then WordPress by itself won't do. One possibility is BuddyPress, which is based on WordPress and already used by a number of sites

   See http://buddypress.org/showcase/

3. auxclass
   Member
   Oct 13, 2010, 3:25 PM

   Also ask at WordPress.ORG: http://wordpress.org/support/ they are the keepers of the WordPress software and I have seen some similar questions to yours ask over there from time to time. They have many developers helping in the Forum and what you are looking for is a custom development, but it might be able to be done with the proper Plug-in's.

   For more on the difference between here (WordPress.COM) and there (WordPress.ORG): http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

4. thesacredpath
   Staff
   Oct 13, 2010, 5:57 PM

   On thing to keep in mind about systems written from scratch is that you end up paying for all the development and improvements, and you have to keep that designer around to make any changes or additions, and if they should flake out or disappear, you are left trying to find someone who is willing to go through all that code and figure out what they did to be able to maintain and update it, so you end up paying big bucks again.

   If you can, stick with something open source and in continuous development such as WordPress or perhaps one of the other CMS packages. You are much more likely to be able to find someone to maintain one of them than find a coder who is willing to go through someone else's dirty laundry.

5. auxclass
   Member
   Oct 13, 2010, 6:17 PM

   +++3 on thesacredpath's advice -

   remember also that it is unusual to find someone that writes code that is easy to understand.- I used to pick up the pieces after others in industrial manufacturing software - some was written so badly that nobody wanted to even breath on the software let alone upgrade it (made spaghetti that you threw against the wall look well laid out) - it is very difficult to write software that is easy to maintain.

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