I want to start a fan fiction site, but I have no idea what "tool" to get onto site.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, I'm a noob and don't know a lot of the techno lingo, so I wasn't sure what exactly the other sections were for.

This is the right section, if you're unsure, it goes in here. We can always move things if they're in the wrong place.

Alright, so I want to start a fansite and I want a section of it to allow people to upload fan fiction and for others to review it. But I have no idea where I would get the "tool" that allows people to upload their word documents.

What do you want to do with Word documents, are you planning on converting them into Web pages or just get people to download the files? If you get into serious integration with Microsoft Word, you're going to have to go all-Microsoft technologies, start with Server 2003 and Sharepoint.

Does fanfiction.net allow people to upload content as Word files?

Does anybody know what this thing is called and where I would find one for my site?

That looks like highly specialised software they're using. They probably wrote the whole thing from scratch themselves. Creating something similar would be a lot of work, fun though. If I were doing that project I'd start out with a CMS (well, it would be Drupal for me), add community modules to do most of the work, then write in my own code to fill-in the gaps. There's a site that allows you to test CMS: http://www.opensourcecms.com/ Trouble is they're all Open Source/Free software, so won't allow people to upload content as Word files (although users will still be able to attach Word files, you just won't be able to automatically add them to the content of your site).

Hope this makes sense, welcome to the forums!

The "thing" I'm talking about looks like this:

Basically, people write their stories on a word processor and then they upload it onto the site so that others can read it and review.

But it looks like I'm probably going to have to hire a professional to do it for me. It sounds complicated and I'm clueless.

So when that form's submitted, are you able to see the content straight away? Or does someone on the other end have to come along and manually copy and paste the content.

Am pretty doubtful that could be done automatically without a lot of pain. Good to see they support open file formats like OpenOffice though, those aren't difficult to convert, it's the Microsoft ones you'll have trouble with.

Nope, once you submit it, you can see it. It takes like half an hour or so to show up on the list of stories on the site, but the link is available for the writer right away and they can give it to whoever they please.

But what I want is for people to be able to upload their content, then have it sent to me and other betas to proofread the content and/or see if it's acceptable, and then we make it available for everyone to see.

The easiest way to get what you want is to start with a CMS. Try some of the ones out there and see which best meet your needs. If you're happy just copying and pasting from file attachments, then there are plenty of CMS out there that can do this.

Personally I would use:

• Drupal;
• Workflow module, to create the moderator workflow;
• Views module to create nice lists of stories waiting to be moderated;
• Action views module, this is just worth investigating, think it can be used to join Views and Workflow together;
• either the Actions or Workflow-ng modules (use actions if possible, as it integrates with Workflow and Action views) to send alert e-mails when a new story is added;

That's just me though, you might find another CMS that you prefer. Best advice is to get out and test some systems, find which you like best. If you get stuck feel free to ask questions here and/or use my advice above.