My name is Noam, I’m the Webmaster for Team 1657 from Israel.
I want to include in our soon-to-come website a simple blog system (written in PHP script if possible), so that Sub-Team leaders can post different updates.
Does anyone have a good recommendation on one (or more)?
I’ll vouch for Wordpress—I use it on my blog. (aignam.com) Make sure you take the necessary precautions in order to prevent automated comment spam, if you decide to enable comments.
I looked into wordpress, and while it’s a good option, I didn’t like it’s templating system. I found it was too hard to implement into an existing layout.
I use pmachine, a similar script that allows for much more customization and easy HTML templating. (Assuming you already have a solid grasp on HTML and at least some knowledge of PHP)
My site is http://www.twoplustwoequalsfive.com, which hosts both my and my brother’s blog. Both are run using pmachine, vouching for the versatility of it’s templating. They’re on separate installs too, making maintaining different blogs easier. Pmachine also has a nice category system that would allow you to easily call up all entries, or just entries based on category (which could be your different sub-teams).
Wordpress is definitely my choice here, and I’d highly recommend using Wordpress to rookies or the advanced kids on the block. I had written my own ‘blogging’ engine from scratch, before I found this. I’m getting fairly comfortable with it myself, so if anyone is looking for some knowledge or guidance with Wordpress, definitely toss me a line somewhere, and I’ll try to catch it (email is probably best). I’m starting some work on some howtos for website designs while my mouth heals from having all 4 wisdom teeth out today, hopefully in the next few days I’ll have some information to help.
Also, using the word ‘blog’ is misleading-- Wordpress certainly is more than powerful enough to handle things besides blogging without any difficulties.
Whatever you end up using, make sure that you’re protected somehow against comment spam by either turning comments off or using some special plugin (I don’t know what’s available for WordPress, but here’s a good guide for Movable Type, even though MT is completely irrelevant to this discussion.) Aignam, you seem to have a comment spam problem - look at the comment from “debt consolidation” on your last entry.
But really just try out the different apps out there. I don’t like wordpress because it mixes PHP with HTML a bit too much to feel “clean” (in the templating).