Its quite good that there are a wide range of free & open source software for website creation. In creating social networks or online communities, some are better suited for the purpose than others.
For that reason, i've selected some of the most popular and widely used software namely; joomla, pligg, elgg, drupal and xoops and pose a question to the webmasters in the house:
If you had to build a social network or online community with any of them, which would you use and why?

Joomla. I have studied joomla rather extensively. And one thing i find out about it is that, it is designed to be extended, now with over 4 million extensions in terms of plugins, modules. . . . .my view.

Much as i would like to go with joomla, i think elgg is ok. I've used it before and the software is quite good. Which of them have you used?

Interesting article:
http://www.noupe.com/php/choosing-cms-tips.html

Those tips are quite ok. I am speaking from my own limited experience, and from a developer's point of view. I have used worpress
extensively. And recently just started using joomla, i have readup the developer's articles in joomla, and so find it very fast and easy
to use, plus i can extend it to do 100% of what i want, but i cannot say the same with worpress. Though for a simple site, that i do
not wish to write any codes at all, i will rather use wordpress. but having said all that, the task at hand is about the most important
as far as i am concerned. I use different programming/scripting languages for various tasks too, for the same reason.

1) I would probably use joomla in combination with the very popular (and free) community builder (CB). There is also a paid online community module whose name I don't recall at the moment, which I am told (naturally) is better than CB.

2) When all you have is a hammer, everything to you is a nail

Joomla is very flexible and can do anything you want it to do, the only problem is that when you install a component, it is not SEF like Wordpress. So one needs to do a little bit tweak to the component.

Wordpress is really good for both SEF and SEO, and I think the usage of any depends on the project  and the mission of the site.

I haven't used WP that much but yes, with a tweak (not that bad ) of the htaccess file and with you updating the necessary "meta keyword" fields associated with each page, you are good to go in that arena.

If you click around, say, joomla.org, you will see that the urls are SEF. Sure, maybe it might take an additional 5 minutes but considering the learning curve is very low, I don't mind it at all. Worse case, I transfer that cost to my client(s)

I agree with both of you dia. One thing i love about joomla is this. I convert an existing code into an extension (plugin/module/whatever)
then i get to reuse the same stuff 100 times! plus, so far, out of all the CMS i have used, joomla gives me 150% accuracy and saves over
50% of my time as well. Plus it makes even my codes (which are OOP from the start) even more extensible. I am speaking from the view
of a developer, if i cannot find whatever i am looking for, or i have to pay, i will not mind creating it myself, unless it is too time costly!
But those that just use the components and all exactly as they come may have some slight problems getting precisely what they want
(though not all the time, but many of most of the time - dont mind my singlish)

I will go for joomla anyday anytime.

Joomla for me too, why? because I can easily extend it . I started out with various CMS a few years back some were too difficult for me . Mambo now Joomla was easier to learn. I use Drupal for some more complicated functions , like CCK was a feature not available in Joomla Core but now we've got K2 extension sef.

@yawa-ti-de , @dhtml: U sound like you know Joomla a lot ? Would you be willing to give a talk at joomla day nigeria . (3rd edition coming up in December) for newbies & intermidiates to Joomla ? We are trying to build up a critical mass of facilitators for this year's edition.
No disrespect intended, I'd like to see some of your stuff though.

I am actually not in the country and don't intend to visit this year so unfortunately, I won't be able to participate, sorry. Having said that, I wish you well and wouldn't mind a website where I could visit to keep myself abreast of the day's events. I guess dhtml will be able to attend

I wouldn't say I know Joomla! a lot. I do what I can when I can and let my work/the client do the talking. I have actually only done 1 site with Joomla! though I first read up on it about 3 years ago and found it to be quite interesting.

allimercy:

Joomla is very flexible and can do anything you want it to do, the only problem is that when you install a component, it is not SEF like Wordpress. So one needs to do a little bit tweak to the component.

Wordpress is really good for both SEF and SEO, and I think the usage of any depends on the project  and the mission of the site.

Allimercy i partially disagree with your statement that joomla isn't SEF like wordpress when u install a componet. When u enter the admin section of the site there is a page for global Configuration there u will find three options that will help you make your joomla site SEF.

Further more for every article and menu there is an alias text box which u can fill so that u can make ur URL as SEF as possible. So in terms of power and flexibility on SEF Joomla tops wordpress for me.

Lastly joomla has many out of the box SEO extensions that u just install and enter a few parameters then you are good to go!

whao

This is not fair.

First off, people that use open source application I can say stick with one or two. Few people might have worked with Elgg or xoops.

I have worked with Joomla, Pligg, and some others just picking the ones you have in the list. Joomla and Pligg targets different markets. Everyone knows Joomla is powerful.

Amen to that Cactus

yawa-ti-de:

I am actually not in the country and don't intend to visit this year so unfortunately, I won't be able to participate, sorry. Having said that, I wish you well and wouldn't mind a website where I could visit to keep myself abreast of the day's events. I guess dhtml will be able to attend

I wouldn't say I know Joomla! a lot. I do what I can when I can and let my work/the client do the talking. I have actually only done 1 site with Joomla! though I first read up on it about 3 years ago and found it to be quite interesting.

How about it DHTML ?

been using wordpress and i find it easy to tweak and extend with the many available plugs, you could also write your own plugin if you are up for it. But for social networking sites wordpress mu is suitable, it allows you host multiple blogs for your users just like wordpress.org, then BuddyPress gives it more functionality as a socialmedia platform. and if you are used to wordpress then creating your own custom theme and enhancement for mu would be easy.

I am not sure yet. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

I like xoops a lot. See a site I built with XOOPS here:
http://www.pcniarlington.com

It is very easy to learn. Unlike joomla where it takes forever to tweak the components, xoops modules always fits out of the box.

goodluck choosing.

Takes forever tweaking joomla components especially if you do not read the developer articles. Joomla core is solid php 5 oop!
Why are you posting a news site in place of a framework? abeg moderator help us commot zat post jor!

Joomla for me any day becos of the thousands of extensions,modules,templates that makes job easier if you are designing a small-medium scale website.

i prefer joomla because it is more flexible compared to the rest, who can deny this

maybe i am biased. but interestingly, despite knowing all those core stuffs about joomla, how to create my own registration, create
components, modules. , templates. . . .i find out that most of the time, i just download out of the gazillions of addons rather than
build my own. The only things i have built that i used so far with joomla is a couple of templates and modules which are all very basic.
By the way, if you are a joomla user and u wish to quickly build modules, you can take a look at the module template builder on my site
www..com - it will create the basic module skeleton and you can add your own codes to it.

*dhtml:

maybe i am biased. but interestingly, despite knowing all those core stuffs about joomla, how to create my own registration, create
components, modules. , templates. . . .i find out that most of the time, i just download out of the gazillions of addons rather than
build my own. The only things i have built that i used so far with joomla is a couple of templates and modules which are all very basic.
By the way, if you are a joomla user and u wish to quickly build modules, you can take a look at the module template builder on my site
www..com - it will create the basic module skeleton and you can add your own codes to it.

DHTML where are you hosting your website its taking forever to open

My site uses a cache, after loading for the first time, subsequent loading is faster. Then again, depends on the speed of your network.

On closer inspection, i observed that my domain uses an internal page cache, which works like the one of joomla. So 2 caches are working
at the same time. I think that explains the initial loading speed. I will look it up later. I will have to disable one.

Er, i think you guys are deviating to far away from what i asked. I asked which is the preferred open source software for <b>social networking<\b> and not just any site.

I concede that joomla is the easiest to learn, use and customize but has any of you used elgg? Try it. It's really great for social networking. With it you can create a site that would make Mark Zuckerberg of facebook green with envy! Joking, but i really think someone should give elgg a tryout. Its free to download, it's about 2mb. If you need a download link i'll post one shortly.

Er, i think you guys are deviating to far away from what i asked. I asked which is the preferred open source software for <b>social networking</b> and not just any site.

I concede that joomla is the easiest to learn, use and customize but has any of you used elgg? Try it. It's really great for social networking. With it you can create a site that would make Mark Zuckerberg of facebook green with envy! Joking, but i really think someone should give elgg a tryout. Its free to download, it's about 2mb. If you need a download link i'll post one shortly.

Im working with Elgg, Social Engine, PHPfox during development. I can admit that PHPfox was the best for me. Addition information regarding pjoject you can find at http://web100.com.ua/eng/expertise/social-networks/index.html

hello
can any one help me pls
i just want you to email help step by step on how to uploads script like joomla,pligg.xoops,
i can see that you are a programm,here is my email robhilson24@rediff.com, i will be hoping
to hear from you so that you can teach me step by step on how to upload that kind of script on
the web server.i mean like what to do first
pls let any one out they feel free to email on how to upload the script at the email above
i am justin by name.