Get wired to win.
What presence do journalists have in open source CMS development?
About 5-6 years ago, when free and/or open source blog software was robust enough to handle small magazine or newspaper sites, I started using them for that purpose. However, they really needed to be hacked up to work well for multi-user, multi-author workflow and certain other features. I was surprised at this, because their whole conceptual architecture was that of journal/newspaper publishing.
Now things have improved a bit, but the main CMSes I use to develop media and other websites still have not been adopted or developed from the standpoint of journalist/ic enterprises. Further, they have been somewhat behind the curve with web 2.0 and social networking features--the whole CMS architecture is too traditional, too newspapery, and needs to be fundamentally reconsidered from the standpoint of social media/social publishing, IMHO.
Regrettably I still see no real journalistic application focus or orientation in FOSS CMS developer circles. Am I missing something? If not, is this a real need? If so, how might it be filled?
The main CMS I deploy these days is Joomla. It beats the alternatives for most clients' needs, from the pragmatic standpoint of giving them the most for their money and something that is easy to use. However, it has some serious failings, especially for newspapery/zine-type sites. On the other hand, Drupal is good in the areas where Joomla is weak and yet weak where Joomla is strong. That's frustrating, and it puzzles me that both (especially Drupal) are in such wide circulation without being impacted by the demands or needs that to me seem pretty common and obvious. Perhaps this is due to a common FOSS cultural tic: overselling by techie enthusiasts who think their favorite CMS can do anything because they can hack it to do anything. (Sort of.) They are not thinking about the practical and long-term needs of most (non-technical) users.
I think Drupal may have the potential to become the publishing CMS I've always wanted, but I have no reason to believe it will be taken in that direction. Wordpress is probably closer and more to my tastes and common uses. It's been a while since I used MovableType, but it was pretty solid when I did use it, and it may be sneaking back up on me as something I'll go back to. My loyalty is to what works well for a particular project and the people who will be using the platform long-term.
Now things have improved a bit, but the main CMSes I use to develop media and other websites still have not been adopted or developed from the standpoint of journalist/ic enterprises. Further, they have been somewhat behind the curve with web 2.0 and social networking features--the whole CMS architecture is too traditional, too newspapery, and needs to be fundamentally reconsidered from the standpoint of social media/social publishing, IMHO.
Regrettably I still see no real journalistic application focus or orientation in FOSS CMS developer circles. Am I missing something? If not, is this a real need? If so, how might it be filled?
The main CMS I deploy these days is Joomla. It beats the alternatives for most clients' needs, from the pragmatic standpoint of giving them the most for their money and something that is easy to use. However, it has some serious failings, especially for newspapery/zine-type sites. On the other hand, Drupal is good in the areas where Joomla is weak and yet weak where Joomla is strong. That's frustrating, and it puzzles me that both (especially Drupal) are in such wide circulation without being impacted by the demands or needs that to me seem pretty common and obvious. Perhaps this is due to a common FOSS cultural tic: overselling by techie enthusiasts who think their favorite CMS can do anything because they can hack it to do anything. (Sort of.) They are not thinking about the practical and long-term needs of most (non-technical) users.
I think Drupal may have the potential to become the publishing CMS I've always wanted, but I have no reason to believe it will be taken in that direction. Wordpress is probably closer and more to my tastes and common uses. It's been a while since I used MovableType, but it was pretty solid when I did use it, and it may be sneaking back up on me as something I'll go back to. My loyalty is to what works well for a particular project and the people who will be using the platform long-term.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Steve Yelvington on
-
Actually, a European school newspaper did that the other way around. Drupal is their planning tool, their photo storage tool, their newsroom CMS, and their Web-facing platform. They created a module that outputs XML files that InDesign can digest. Here's the detail.
Also, Johan Falk has put together a very nice evaluation of various modules useful for news sites,
-
Permalink Reply by Dan Knauss on
-
Nice! I'll check it out. Did they release the XML output module? Publishing from web to print is an interesting idea. Makes great sense really.
-
-
would/could you recommend a text editor for Drupal other than FCKeditor?
-
-
We've used FCKEditor and TinyMCE, and I don't see any particular advantage of one over the other. The integration modules are more important -- because Drupal uses a lot of textareas that should NOT be rich-text enabled, you need to be able to control where the RTE shows up. Which is better depends on which version of Drupal, and which version of the integration module, et cetera.
Drupal 7 will have core support in the forms API that enables module developers to flag textareas so RTEs don't show up where they aren't wanted.
-
-
right, I meant the modules not the editor scripts per se. What's the best editor module in terms of integration and its quality as an editor?
I used FCKeditor in MovableType a long time ago, and I've used the major variations of MCE in Mambo and Joomla for awhile--not a lot of difference, but I've wondered if I'm missing something else.
-
Permalink Reply by Steve Hanson on -
Ah well - I just found this site today --
For the record, I AM Drupal for Users, for all intents and purposes. It's a project I started a while back, and it has drifted on to my back burner for various reasons, mostly because having to earn an income.
But it is showing signs of moving up in my priorities - I'm actually considering renaming it Drupal for Authors, which I think is more to the point.
So - since this discussion is one that interests me - if we were to expand the Drupal for Users/Authors site - what would you want from it (at the moment I'm beating the bushes for some funding for the project).
-
Permalink Reply by Jason Molinet on
-
After a lot a research and headscratching, my company a recently jumped into WordPress. And I'm very encouraged by the initial results.
-
-
What are the initial results? Wordpress seems very weak in the area of community features since (last I checked) it lacks a core ACL for group, role, and individual permission settings.
-
-
Here's one site we just moved over to Wordpress:
http://fantasysportsupdate.com
As for the limitations, etc.: A good programmer can do anything...
-
-
what's the motivation to reinvent the wheel on something as complex as an ACL? what is it about WordPress that is so compelling that lack of a robust ACL isn't a decisive selection criterion for you? If you're not trying to build an online community with a lot of social features, it's not an issue of course...
If you plan to do so custom coding, are you also planning to release the fruits of your labor as GPL for other Wordpress users? The hazards of doing this (being compelled to support that code in perpetuity and manage the non-paying "clientele" it spawns) has led to a lot of spiffy newspaper sites done in a customized version of Drupal (and no doubt other FOSS CMSes) with extensions that no one else gets to see or use.
If this is a set of issues your company has considered, would it change anything if Wordpress or Drupal were not hostile to non-GPL "derivations"? Joomla is divided on this--there are a lot of non-GPL or creatively commercialized GPL Joomla extensions. (Similar situations may exist with the numerous other GPL CMSes out there.)
Ironically, dotnetnuke, which is an open source Microsoft .NET framework that doesn't run on a LAMP stack (uses proprietary underlying windows WAMP stack), is happy to have both GPL and variously licensed free and commercial extensions. This is ironic because it gives more and diverse options in terms of software products and support services to users than the old and doomed "purist" GPL attitude--"all code and all code that touches our code must be free." This mentality is akin to the arterially hardened factions of print fetishizing anti-web people in publishing, higher ed (humanities scholars) and journalism. They're all trying to protect turf and ignore fundamental economic, informational, and transactional realities--people want choices, incuyding commercial choices. The freedom one wants is not ultimately "freedom from cost/fees for code" but freedom to have the widest range of choices and support to meet a need, including choices that may cost some money but may actually have a lower total cost of ownership than "free" software.
A whole can of worms there, but one I'm increasingly interested in. Posted a comment on it at Jay Rosen's blog:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2008/07/08/big...
Of note: "No Respect for Windows Open Source"
http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/825/EntryID/207/Def...
-
-
No, you wouldn't run a social network off Wordpress. For us, the magic of Wordpress is being able to turn operations over to people with no programming / editor skills. It's CMS interface is excellent.
But as I said before, a good programmer can integrate anything. Freeware such as Dolphin could fill your needs, I believe...
-
-
I'm not looking for anything, just keeping an eye out. Elgg has integration with Drupal, Media Wiki, and Vanilla--looks promising.
I haven't seen the Wordpress UI in a year or so. I never liked it, especially after 2.0, but it is definitely usable for the average person and easy for admins to work on. Really good, well-organized extension community also. But I have yet to see a better UI than Joomla's--its faults lie elsewhere.
As for the "talented programmers" thing, I prefer the talented programmers who already built or anticipated and laid the ground work for integration with X (who are more likely to do this if they have a lot of diverse input) rather than the talented programmers who are called in by company Y and paid a lot to hack up some GPL code, make it do what the company wants, and then you've got that package to attend to...and then if the boss says, "no way we're releasing it as GPL for others to play with after all we put into it," company Y has totally missed the benefits of open source.
About Wired Journalists
Ryan Sholin
created this social network on Ning.
Where credit is due
Howard Owens and Zac Echola are the co-founders of Wired Journalists, sharing all the credit and blame with Ryan Sholin.
Patrick Thornton is around here somewhere, as well.
Contact any of us with questions, suggestions, or concerns.
Thanks!
Patrick Thornton is around here somewhere, as well.
Contact any of us with questions, suggestions, or concerns.
Thanks!
© 2009 Created by Ryan Sholin on Ning. Create your own social network
