Posted 09 January 2008 - 08:17 AM
Okay... it's not necessarily the tools you use, but how you use them.
As far as I can see, most "Entry" capable CMS will suffice (that is anything that supports Articles or such a content type).
You can then simply alter the setup to include additional fields as required.
The better CMS/CMF also have pretty strong Access/Privilege/Roles systems, so security and ownership is pretty safe (such as makeing it so that Users can only Edit/Delete their own entries, along with Admin).
As for altering...
You can either enable sub-themes and let people select from pre-created page-designs or sub-page desings,
If you feel really generous, and trust them, you could include a block that lets them insert their own CSS and Markup.... and the content blocks would be injected inbetween them.
Alternatively, you could go to the effort of creating a Synamic Page system, with basic options for layout and positioning, and let them choose from a selection of options for Header/Nav/Footer etc... and even upload their own graphics and select colours/fonts etc. for styling (from pre-existing choices).
It all depends on what you are capable of, what sort of flexibility they want, and how much time/effort/money you are willing to spend on such a project.
If you are going for such a diverse and flexible idea, you are likely to want a bit more than the common CMS can give you easily (meaining most will require a moderate to excessive amount of tweaking/customising/external scripting).
In such a case, you may want to either go for one of the pre-packaged deals and pay for a system that the providers could customise for you, or go and get a damn flexible CMS/CMF tobegin with, that already covers the majority of what you need.
As a word of advice, I strongly suggest you plan out all likely possiblities, wants, functions and purposes.
What sort of categorisation will you have?
Will different Authors have similar categories, or want to create their own?
How will visitors navigate?
Do you want items appearing in multiple categories?
Will there be ARticle Archives, Maps by Date/Topic/Authoer, and sub maps to match etc.?
How about Email to Friend, Bookmark, Social Bookmark options?
Can people contact the authors individually?
What about Author Bio pages?
Will there be coments permitted on all articles, or jsut some, or none at all?
Will you want to have a block for Latest Entries?
Waht about Reviews and Ratings of Blogs/Entries?
If so, will you have Hot Topics (ranked by highest Ratings)?
Will you include things that will alter the In-Page SEO?
How about Image inclusion... in the Text or as seperate sections?
And those are all off the top of my head and pretty much standard!
The more information and ideas you have and can describe, the more help we can be.
Just be warned that most people only ever use one or two systems, and tend to stick to those, so suggestions are personal, not necessarily wholly objective.
For an idea of different CMS, there is a current topic about testing and selecting one for use... may be of interest/use to you.