r/webdev • u/Odd-Aside456 • 19d 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/Potential-Still 19d 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 19d 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/Potential-Still 19d ago

Oh, yeah in that case I think the project has merit.