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Ask HN: How do I go about creating a simple discussion platform?

Hi folks,

My father has a non-profit org called Manthan (http://www.manthanindia.com/). They have a healthy amount of article sharing + discussion on their Facebook and Yahoo group. I'm looking to start off a segment for high schoolers, Manthan for Teenagers, and want to move that and the above to an independent discussion platform for various reasons.

What is a good (= easy, simple, clean) way to create a platform like HN? Are there existing solutions, possibly open source, that I could build off? Even a plug-in would work. I couldn't find anything myself.

Any help is appreciated!

( 4 comments | 2 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: How do I go about creating a simple discussion pl... by sathley on Monday October 28, 2013 @07:21AM (#6626294)
Hey, Manthan seems like a great platform. For your discussion platform you could check out http://www.appyoda.io/ We are a Pune based startup in the Backend as a Service arena. Appyoda is an application we built on our platform. Do give it a try.
Re:Ask HN: How do I go about creating a simple discussion pl... by mansigandhi on Monday October 28, 2013 @08:58AM (#6626593)
Thanks sathley -- we should connect. My startup, Shoutt, also also in the Q&A space! Edit: appyoda is, not appacitive. So not the same space.

appyoda looks great btw. And so does appacitive. (sort of like Parse?) Though, I'm looking for something more HN like, built for longer discussions.

Re:Ask HN: How do I go about creating a simple discussion pl... by ctindall on Monday October 28, 2013 @06:49AM (#6626210)
http://slashcode.com/

This is the perl that powers slashdot, among other things. I'd say it's sufficiently HN-like to take a look at if that's what your would like.

Re:Ask HN: How do I go about creating a simple discussion pl... by mansigandhi on Monday October 28, 2013 @07:06AM (#6626254)
Awesome, thanks! let me take a look at it.