Askbot is a free and open source question and answer forum web application. It is similar to Stack Overflow and Yahoo Answers. The Askbot platform is written in Python and Django. Large open source software projects like Fedora and LibreOffice are using it as their main Q&A website.
Askbot is a high quality tool. It is very easy to configure, customize, and use its rich set of features. Askbot provides efficient question and answer knowledge management. It enables focused on-topic discussions. Best answers (according to voting) are shown first. Comments under questions and answers allow free follow-up discussions. Askbot offers advanced full text search, SEO and support for over 10 languages.
The main features of Askbot
- Deployment. Basic Askbot can be up in minutes. It is extensively tested with the MySQL and PostgreSQL database backends. Being a Django app, Askbot can work with other applications written using the Django Framework.
- Admin interface. Forum administrator has access to the administrative web-interface that contains detailed registry of available settings. There admins can manage various aspects of the forum software, like uploading logo, assigning moderator status to a user, changing reputation threshold, etc.
- Authentication. The user authentication system supports traditional password authentication method, as well as federated protocols - OpenID and OAuth. Moreover, users can log in via the popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or email platforms like Google, Yahoo, and AOL. Askbot allows users to login using multiple methods simultaneously and manage their login methods, or even enable single sign-on for secure authentication via company login.
- Reputation/Karma. There is graphical reputation statistics and user privileges grow along with their reputation. Votes highlight the best content, while karma system spotlights experts and motivates users to give their best. For offering useful information users are rewarded with karma that is affected by users’ upvoting or downvoting. There is also daily reputation cap and several types of karma: public, private or hidden.
- Editing. Basically everything is editable. Askbot has wiki model features, so users can edit both their questions and their answers. The entire history of edits is preserved and they are displayed as revisions on the page. Graphical highlighting of differences between revisions is built-in. Full featured Markdown editor, live preview while editing, and in-place retag make working with this platform enjoyable experience.
- Moderation. Regular users (with sufficient reputation) and forum Moderators can take part in the content moderation and flag offensive posts. A post with a certain number of flags (adjustable) is automatically hidden. Moderators can suspend and block users, and delete any post at any time.
- Tagging and categorizing. Askbot has basic tagging functionality, so users can create tags and label questions with them.
- Notifications. Users can receive notifications (via email or RSS) when new posts/answers/comments are made. Users can be informed instantly or periodically (once a day or weekly). Questions can also be shared on Twitter and Facebook.
- Theming. The website’s appearance can be customized via Askbot’s theming system. Add your own CSS, HTML templates and JavaScript code.
AskBot is a complete open source Question & Answer solution written in Python and Django. It offers functionality similar to StackOverflow: Q&A workflow, voting, karma, content moderation, email alert system, and many more. AskBot is flexible and many of the offered features are optional, so you can enable only those you need. For more information visit Askbot website.