Interesting idea. (Years ago someone once took the source code for Slashdot and created their own clone.) And a while back someone asked if the source code for

Interesting idea. (Years ago someone once took the source code for Slashdot and created their own clone.) And a while back someone asked if the source code for Hacker News was openly available. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390685 And there's also an API. https://github.com/HackerNews/API https://github.com/HackerNews/API There's lots of Wikipedia-like software available, too. I guess it depends on what you mean by "build" a community. (Though if you're trying to do it online, the key is going to be comments and maybe also individual accounts.) You could just try starting your own subreddit. Another option is just announcing meetups -- maybe an online (or live?) book club for geeks or programmers, or a geek discussion circle.