I want to test an idea I have using the Q&A collaborative format and I need something similar to Stack Exchange that will allow users to post news items and ask and answer questions. It would be similar to Stack Exchange format or even the format of this site. What would people here recommend? I'm not a developer so I'd have to outsource the development/configuration to someone but I'm just trying to get a feel for what is out there that will allow me to run this test in the simplest most cost effective way possible.
HN itself is open source (included with Arc: <a href="http://arclanguage.org/install" rel="nofollow">http://arclanguage.org/install</a>), as is reddit (<a href="https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki</a>). It does sound like Openqa is a better option though.
There's always Lamer News, "an HN style social news site written in Ruby/Sinatra/Redis/JQuery"<p><a href="https://github.com/antirez/lamernews" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/antirez/lamernews</a>
I recently came across Coordino (<a href="http://coordino.com/" rel="nofollow">http://coordino.com/</a>). I haven't tried it out myself, but it looks pretty polished.<p>It's also Open Source.
nice. test out your hypothesis first. :)<p>try OSQA. Heard it's good. thanks. get a host like uhm webfaction.<p>Goodluck! Outsource to RoRers / pythonistas in the Philippines.<p>I heard this guy is good - bryanbibat.net