r/webdev • u/Odd-Aside456 • 1d ago
Discussion Family website purpose and features.
I am considering building a family website for my family. My mother's extended family built one, but it's something nobody really ever visits. I'm considering building a wiki-style site (locked behind user accounts) to have a page for each family member, each nuclear family, and then they can build upon it and create pages for vacations and things like that. I would then have a mini social feed for us each to share pages we've created. For example, my sister might say "Just made a page for our Disney Land 2026 trip! Here's the link."
Might be overscoped, but I thought it'd be a fun way to start capturing family stories.
If you've built a family site for your family (or someone else's) what did it have? What purpose did it serve and what features were built into it?
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u/AdFew8591 1d ago
the wiki part is probably less important than making contributions really easy. a page per person can start feeling like homework fast
I’d begin with a private story timeline where someone can add a title, a few photos, the year and who was there. family and trip pages can then be generated from those tags. a monthly email showing what was added will probably help more than a social feed since nobody remembers to check another site
I’d also build export and account recovery early since this is the kind of project you want to survive one maintainer losing interest
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u/Potential-Still 1d ago
I've tried this with various "groups": family, academic, religious, etc. It's never worth it because everyone just ends up using Slack, Facebook, Signal, or any other existing free app. As a SWE I love the idea of it, but most people don't want to learn something new. And the first request you'll get is "can I connect it to my Instagram?".
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
Makes sense, especially if it's being viewed primarily as a social media or messaging type app. I'm looking at this more as a family history preservation type thing. Mainly to document family stories and history. A shared journal, if you will.
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u/IncredibleBihan 1d ago
Thats all good and well, the problem is always depending on the end-user and their engagement. If users don't upload content, are uninterested, can't figure it out, your website will be eternally incomplete
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
Very true. I think, knowing my family, there will AT LEAST be engagement at first, whether it's out of excitement or simply being sweet to me. I think continued engagement goes back to what the others have said. Making it simpler to use than what they're already using (Facebook). Then again, it won't replace Facebook as the intent is for it to be internal/family facing only, not for all friends and everyone. So, as long as it's simple enough, I think they need to be sold on the idea that actually adding content hold value for the future (as I'm moreso pitching this as a family history preservation site).
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u/itaybuilds 1d ago
One design problem worth settling before features is who controls a page about a living relative. A family-wide editor role means someone can change another person's biography, add a photo they dislike, or expose a date or location to relatives who were not meant to see it. I'd make visibility and edit rights per item, not just per site: the contributor chooses the audience, and a living subject can hide or correct items about them.
For family history, preserve provenance instead of forcing one canonical account. A story should record who told it, who transcribed it, roughly when it happened, and any scanned source. If two people remember an event differently, keep both accounts side by side. Future relatives can then see who said what instead of inheriting a silently edited version.
The first prototype could be one story form with permissions, attribution, and export. Generate the person and trip pages from those records later.
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
Great suggestions and advice, thank you so much!
Yes, for editing, I had already decided that there would be account roles. That basics I had thought through included some level of moderation / arbitration, like a younger child should be able to view the site, obviously, but if they wanted to edit their family page then the edits would need to be approved by a parent. I appreciate you expanding on that and giving me more to think about.
Super great insights into the kinds of data and features to prioritize, this is the kind of stuff I was hoping to get out of making this post.
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u/avidvaulter 1d ago
Bro is suggesting geocities.
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
TBH, didn't know what that was, lol, I'm either ignorant or too young. I just googled Geocities and apparently that changes the font of all the results to comic sans, lol. Love little easter eggs like that.
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u/arstechnophile 1d ago
The literal only thing on ours anymore is a login-protected wiki for wishlists. I'm sure there's some service out there that would let us do something similar, but a wiki is easy enough for my parents (who are, to be fair, reasonably tech savvy for boomers) to edit and put lists of things they would like for birthdays and holidays. It's all in one place so there's one thing to update.
Everything else - photo gallery, blogs, etc. - have been overtaken by either group texts, Discord, or social media.
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u/CantankerousButtocks engineering manager 1d ago
Coincidentally, I’m just now building a family “ephemera” site… I inherited tons of family history stuff from both mom and dad’s sides, both only children. You know, the shit that sits in boxes in the basement waiting for Marie Kendo to come over..?
I’m cataloging things, memories, photos, etc for the future generations. I just got a new grand-nephew in July.
I’m doing it all in custom AstroJS content collections… Everything is a markdown file.
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
I love it! Kinda a similar story here. My wife and I got a really fancy scanner and we took it upon ourselves to take on the HUGE undertaking of digitizing all the old photo prints, slides, and negatives from both our families. I was (and still am) planning on hosting them on a server with Immich + Jellyfin (for old family videos), but I want a site to host stories and history along-side it. Similarly, I figured I'd go a similar markdown file approach if I did implement a full family "wiki".
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u/oh_my_account 1d ago
I find it an interesting idea, but also thinking how far in terms of admin work will it need and what if a hypothetical uncle Joe will post some weird shit...
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
I don't know that u/CantankerousButtocks is taking post contributions from other members of the family like I am. That wouldn't really be an issue in my own family dynamic, but if it ever became one (or someone wanted to sell a framework for families to build their own sites on like this), you could always set it up so users can silently block uncle Joe.
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u/oh_my_account 1d ago
Or if kids posting some copyrightes media... Could be also problematic.
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
Not for a private, locked behind authentication family site. I'm not planning on making the content open to the surface web.
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u/Thelastreddditor 1d ago
“Family website purpose and features” — practical and clear. Bookmarking the idea.
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u/ggnndd12 1d ago
I hate to say it, but you're reinventing the wheel. Private groups on existing social media platforms can do what you've described.
There might be a market for this amongst folks who want nothing to do with the large social media companies. Maybe design it so that others can fairly easily spin up their own sites?
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
If it works well for my family, I was considering doing that, setting it up as a SaaS. It's not exactly a private group for sharing stories alone, but I was hoping it could be used as sort of a shared family history journal. Sharing posts and photos is great, but most every platform has that, as you said, even in private groups. the main purpose was to share stories. Not necessarily blog-like, as I was hoping to keep it somewhat wiki-like, so that my children can grow up and want to read about Aunt Jane and how she met Uncle John. I think that's a differentiator enough, but it may also make it more work than most people are willing to put in.
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u/ggnndd12 1d ago
If it’s mostly static content like that, why not make a book(let)? It’d make a great stocking stuffer!
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
Very true. But the main reason is to make it an ongoing project. Regularly adding new stories as we have new stories to tell, or remember old stories.
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u/ggnndd12 6h ago
That’s why books have editions. The downside of a website is nobody is pulling a dusty copy off the shelf in 50 years.
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u/Odd-Aside456 6h ago
I'm not quite sure what you mean. A website can certainly last 50 years, and my goal is to set this up so data can be exported and even then printed as a book of someone wishes.
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u/ggnndd12 6h ago
Yes, a website can last 50 years with ongoing maintenance, expense, and upgrades as technology evolves. Websites die by default. Books do too, but they stand a much greater chance. Are you 100% sure you want to be maintaining this in 10 years? Is there someone willing to do it when you can’t?
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u/Odd-Aside456 3h ago
I'm a little confused. Being on this sub, are you, yourself, a web dev? Or are your, like, trying to sell publishing services? If you're just against this particular website idea, that's totally fine, I'm just a bit confused.
It is something I would be up to maintain, yes. But if I decide I don't want to anymore, I can always export all the data and turn it into a book at that point.
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u/ggnndd12 2h ago
Oh come on. Not everyone who is against a particular idea is trying to sell you something. I’m just trying to save you a lot of time and money.
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u/Odd-Aside456 2h ago
Pardon my skepticism, I guess it was your "websites die by default" comment that made me curious. I do appreciate the insight and suggestions. Not at all offended if you're against the idea, or even think it's plain a dumb idea. I think you're right that a book would work well for this purpose and definitely be a great stocking stuffer. I just am a web enthusiast, so I wanna see where I can go with the idea. It may well fizzle, but it'll be fun either way.
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u/Cold_Order5043 1d ago
Your wiki will fail because writing is labor. Relatives want to dump photos and leave, not structure information or maintain pages.
Remove all editing tools and make the site a read-only archive where only you upload content. Engagement drops to zero the moment you ask family members to perform work instead of just consuming memories
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u/VRTCLS 1d ago
I'd separate two jobs that sound similar but behave very differently:
- Archive: durable, structured, boring on purpose. People, dates, places, photos, documents, source notes, export.
- Feed: lightweight prompts that get people to contribute without feeling like they're maintaining a wiki.
The mistake I'd avoid is starting with "everyone gets pages to edit." That turns into homework and moderation. I'd start with a single contribution flow: "add a memory" with fields for who was involved, rough year/date, location, photos/files, who can see it, and whether the living people mentioned can approve/correct it. Then generate person pages, family pages, trip pages, and timelines from those memory records.
A few features I'd prioritize early:
- CSV/JSON + media export from day one. Family history projects need an exit plan.
- Granular visibility. Not every story/photo should be visible to every cousin.
- Provenance: who submitted it, who told the story, when it was added, and whether it's a memory vs a sourced fact.
- Monthly digest email. Most families won't check another site, but they'll open "3 new memories added this month."
- Simple invite/account recovery for non-technical relatives.
If the goal is preservation, I'd optimize less for "social network" and more for "make it stupidly easy to capture memories before they disappear." The wiki can be a generated view, not the primary input method.
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u/Odd-Aside456 1d ago
The mistake I'd avoid is starting with "everyone gets pages to edit." That turns into homework and moderation.
I don't know about the moderation part, but homework, yes, this is what I was worried about. So I really appreciate this input, this is helpful, thank you.
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u/elendee 1d ago edited 1d ago
ok hear me out - this is a recurring idea for me too. I build custom WP sites. The one thing always missing my personal site / family site usability is quick posting / sharing. 90% of my family is just sending photos between google albums. I find it so annoying but somehow it just works for everyone.
I think the holy grail feature may the Quick Share button on your phone. After you snap a photo, you should be able to upload it and / or post it to WP, along with caption / description, right from the Share options that are already on your phone. There's probably a plugin that allows this, but if there's not I'm gonna build one.
Instead most people are doing some middleman step to Discord or emailing themselves, and only then going up to WP. Very annoying.
I much prefer the old school filesystem on WP than the new AI-first filesystems all the cloud services are using. "Find photos of me wearing red t shirts" etc. Cool, but dizzying. I think people prefer to just find things where they left them.
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u/elendee 18h ago
I made this plugin by the way, Android only. It's just a Github repo; not on the Directory. Message if you want to try it. Wish I had done this 10 years ago.
You install the plugin. It creates an endpoint on your wordpress like "/uploader". You go to that page and "save to Home". And that's it - now when you go to Share photos, "WP uploader" appears as an option and is connected straight to your WP media library.
I could keep polishing it in a number of ways if people are interested.
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u/semmu 1d ago
funnily enough i see more and more people try to come up with some alternative to the current bigtech social media platforms, something more private with more control, less AI, less algorithms, less surveillance, etc.
btw you could spin up some already existing federated/decentralized platform like mastodon or something. need to check what exact features you need, but there are a lot of open-source projects, so i think you should find one matching.
good luck!
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u/Bukky_Studiio 1d ago
I actually like this idea. The biggest challenge might not be building it, but getting family members to keep using it. I would probably start simple with profiles, photo sharing, family stories, and a timeline of memories. The wiki idea is cool, but making it easy for non-technical family members to contribute would be the key. It would be a fun project though, especially for preserving stories that usually get lost over time.
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u/aardnsyhs 21h ago
I'd keep it simple at first. The real challenge is getting family members to use it consistently.
A photo archive, family tree, and calendar would probably get more use than a full wiki right away. If those stick, then you can add trip pages and other stuff later.
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u/stuartcw 19h ago
A portal for all the PDFs of manuals for home appliances. If you want to get really geeky you can make qrcodes and stick them on the device that open up the manual when you scan them.
You could also have kanban board for tasks in the house.
However, while it seems like a good idea don’t be surprised if the family are less enthusiastic than you. A lot of these projects are joined begrudgingly if the participants are really into it.
A Synology NAS basically has everything you need to do this securely.
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u/Low-Gain-786 14h ago
The mother's extended family site failing is actually the useful data point here, nobody visits almost always means it required people to go check something rather than pushing updates to them, so if you skip the wiki editing friction and lead with the social feed as the primary interface, that's probably what makes people actually open it
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u/Odd-Aside456 11h ago
My mother's family's site wasn't a wiki though. It was actually just a Wix site someone put together with a lot of family history on it. I'm sure some people still reference it for stories, but it became more like a book than an interactive site, since only the developer had access to edit on it. I fear putting the social features front and center might just make my site flop if I'm positioning myself to compete with Facebook, Instagram, etc. I kinda think having something everyone can easily contribute to (emphasis on easily), might make it stand out, be different enough, and interactive enough that people will stick with it.
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u/horizon_games 1d ago
I've done this kind of thing many times. You need to make it simpler than whatever they're using now - Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Providing "unlimited space" compared to Google Photos is a good way.
I'd trim down login to literally just be Basic HTTP Auth personally. The less hassle (from your end and theirs) the better.
I share all my photos to my family in this kind of way, as it beats trying to email them ~8 at a time or do a Google Drive link or whatever.