I would like to set up an online platform for users, within my niche hobby of interest, to blog about their activities. (notice the hosting company only has FTP access and databases - no SSH)
So it is basically an online blogging platform (could it be wordpress?) where people simply sign up and start blogging about their hobby. I would want sign up to be more or less automatic. As far as I could tell, Wordpress offers this, but an admin would be needed to set up and approve the new blog.
I was hopping for a joined feed on the front page, showing all post as the are posted, but also allow for each user to have their own “front page” or feed, with their own posts.
Categories, tags etc should be shared (but not uploaded media).
I have been looking at federated option, but the ones that I have found require SSH or me to be able to execute commands (?). I have only tried installing systems using the PHP files and I am not offered SSH or cPanel at my host
Why not run Lemmy?
Possibly a stupid question, but is changing host an option? You should be able to run what you need from a VPS at one of the established providers. Personally I use Hetzner and I like them, but there’s a bunch of providers available.
Wordpress should work fine for just ftp and database access only. It all depends on what’s running serverside, and if you can install stuff. I know some php-modules are absolutely necessary. I’ve ran WordPress on a multitude of companies, hardware and software. It isn’t hard to get it running if you know your way around a webserver
Do you know if i can let people sign up as authors instead of me having to upgrade them to it?
I had a Wordpress blog set up like that once, and it should still be possible. Although you might get a lot of spammers that way. I did this 15-20 years ago, on Wordpress 2.0. Edit: just checked on my test install, it still works.
Thanks! There must be some plugin that filters most spam users out. Ill have a closer look at it again. Thanks!
Not sure if this fits your exact need, but I’ve been running my blog on Grav CMS. It’s really easy to setup as it uses flat file to store your content instead of database. You could just download a tarball, extract it, point your HTTP server (and php-fpm) to it, and see it on your web browser. If you know your PHP, you could even customize a theme.
Anyways, feel free to check out my blog: timkenhan.co
I’ve not used it, but supposedly there’s a plugin that allows Wordpress to generate over ActivityPub (which Mastodon uses).
I have that for my personal blog and it works nicely!
Its the part of opening up the door for external users to start posting on it too that seems tricky. But it may be the best option to use wordpress and somehow automatically let them post there
A single wordpress blog comes premade with multiple user/author support with granular permission supprted out of the box.
