How To Start a Site

[kschnee]

Hello. I'm considering starting a Web site involving politics, but I'm not sure how to go about it in terms of the technology.

What I'm hoping to do is set up some articles, links, and a forum, presented in a reasonably professional format. I could use basic HTML, which I know how to use, but wouldn't know how to set up a forum. On the much more complicated end, I tried out a set of freeware for running a server -- XAMPP plus Joomla -- and was able to work through a tutorial to get a complex site running offline on my own machine.

Currently I have an account on Xepher.net (thanks again!) that I'm not using for much; I should probably not host the planned new site on this server though, for fear of being too controversial and hence being a bad guest. Assuming that I find a server, how would I go about actually establishing a site online? Specifically I'm wondering (1) how I figure out whether to use a Content Management System vs. HTML and some forum service, and (2) how I go from writing the content to getting it on someone's server.

[Xepher]

Nothing says a site here can't be controversial. :-)

As for technology, you probably do want something like joomla or wordpress, as it'll make it a lot easier to maintain and update things, and will generally come off as more professional unless you really know what you're doing with HTML. It's really just a matter of installing the webapp on your site, then using the built-in tools to create content directly in the CMS.