What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

[app103]

This is for building a community powered blog-like photo gallery site in which anyone can join and submit content

• User registers on the site, followed by email validation

            user name
            email address
            password
            avatar upload
   

• User fills out a form

            select photo from hard drive
            Give it a title
            fill in caption
            check off TOS agreement box
            submit button
   

• Submission goes into moderation queue

• Multiple moderators can process the queue with approve or reject

            moderators can edit submissions if necessary
   

• Approved entries are posted to main blog-like page, limit 5, with link to see older posts (same style)

• Posts on main page present photo, caption, link to individual post page, credits section containing user name and avatar of uploader linked to profile page

• Post pages contain photo, caption, credits section containing user name and avatar of uploader linked to profile page, embed code, area for members to rate and comment

• sidebar section contains thumbnails & links to 10 latest approved submissions

• Sidebar section contains thumbnails & links to 10 top rated submissions

• Profile pages with list of each user's approved submissions, with thumbnails, titles, and links to post pages

• Award system with badges for best of day, month, year, with badges appearing on post pages and user profiles

• Lots of RSS possibilities, including individual feeds for each user.

[JavaJones]

It sounds like those needs are pretty photo-centric, so I would think a multi-user gallery solution like Gallery2/3 or Coppermine would probably be best. You could get the same/similar functionality with a more general purpose CMS and some modules/plugins, but it would be overkill by the sound of it.

- Oshyan

[app103]

Those are not very blog-like at all. I am not looking for something that can make individual groups of photos. I am looking for more of a massively multi-user photo blog CSM where all accepted submissions are posted to the same collection which is presented in a very blog-like way.

Think buzzfeed. Something similar to that.

All the image submissions will be around the same subject theme.

Wordpress would be perfect, if I were doing all the posts myself, or had a group of trusted people that was doing all the posting. But this will be open sign-up and submissions, and needs to have good moderation to prevent spam, and it needs to be fast & easy to process the moderation queue. I also wanted it to be a community of sorts, so members will feel like it belongs to them and they are not just submitting stuff to something that belongs to me.

What I don't want is something like Flickr, or some place where members have their own galleries. This would lead to them only feeling what is on their profile belongs to them.

I don't want a "I built this part of the site and it's mine" thing going on. I want a "we built this site and it's ours".

[JavaJones]

Gallery2/3 can do "everyone uploads to a single gallery" and there are ways to get it to do photoblog-type things. Maybe there is a better "out of the box" solution, I just figured since the majority of your desired functionality centers around photos, that it would make sense to look at photo-oriented solutions. ZenGallery is another one I like, though it's probably not robust or flexible enough for your needs (though it does have blog-like options).

- Oshyan

[app103]

Not sure I'd want to use ZenGallery right now. Not sure I'd even want to visit their site.

What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

[Renegade]

Wordpress with the multi-blogger option is one route.

DotNetNuke should fit the bill as well.

Joomla or Drupal could do it.

However, I think that for all of those you'd need to customize them a bit to get exactly what you want.

[JavaJones]

Renegade, my thoughts exactly. All non-gallery options require customization. There is a Gallery2 integration system for WordPress though. Maybe a combo of Wordpress, Gallery 2, and integration/multi-blogger mods/options.

- Oshyan