Re: [libreoffice-website] [SC] Decision about CMS

On Oct 21, 2010, at 7:03 PM, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> But *could* is not enough: We need a working website *now* (to be honest, we would have needed in 
> already two weeks ago).
>
> What has not been communicated in the past is: The demo will be (at least I think so) the basis 
> for the new website where the different teams should work on during the next days. There will be 
> no time to set up a different system for the official website - so it needs to work.

This seems obvious, but unfortunately was not ever suggested before. I understand the urgency, but 
I do not think successful projects emerge from a requirement of "get it done now."

> People with very little experience in website construction will have to be able to create 
> websites for their own LibreOffice/TDF area on the website.
>
> Especially the native-language teams, but also marketing and user support are waiting too long 
> already.
>
> We're losing momentum - contributors - users if we keep on discussing the best solution.

I think we run this risk, but on the other hand, additional people keep joining the mailing list 
and volunteering, so we may not have to worry about it yet.

> Christian's preconditions on the wiki
> (http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Evaluation_of_CMS_Platforms#Requirements) have been a 
> *minimum* condition to start working for the different teams.
>
> I don't know how far the Drupal demo allows a less experienced editor to do the task mentioned 
> there - reading Christian's comments, many of them have still not been activated in the demo.
>
> What I miss in the wiki is a check mark showing which demo allows which task to be done already.
>
> This is much more a basis for the start than the possible features that could be integrated later 
> on.
>
> I'd really like to focus on the latter, but we don't have the time to wait any longer.
>
> If we had all the *basic* features included in the demo I'm quite sure that the possibilities 
> contained in the Drupal modules would allow us to use our website for many very interesting and 
> highly positive things and that Drupal would be favorite over Silverstripe if it is as 
> editor-friendly as Silverstripe (in the demo version).
>
> But we need to start now, so these thoughts should be proposed later.
>
> We can't turn back the time, so there is no chance to discuss the topic even more thoroughly and 
> create a detailed system allowing us to do even things we don't imagine now right from the start.
>
> The only question is:
>
> Which *already built demo system* is able to allow the teams to start now:
>
> Is it easy enough to create and modify websites, link them to each other and to external pages?
>
> Is there a consistent navigation area automatically added to any newly created page?
>
> Does version control work?
>
> Are there different levels of roles established for editors and people approving modifications?
>
> Does the system can distinguish between different user roles (visitor, contributor, content 
> developer ...) and show different content depending on their roles?
>
> Can Sub-groups work on their own area being informed if their content is modified?
>
> Please look at the wiki page for additional requirements, but in my eyes these are the ones 
> fundamental for starting to work for the teams.
>
> If the Drupal demo allows all this *now*, I'd ask Christian to have one more look at the demo.

Yes, I believe Drupal offers everything listed above and on the wiki page. 

A few days ago, I added some requirements on the wiki page referring to ad hoc group creation, 
things which I do not believe SilverStripe can support, based on its demo and my research.

> I really like Drupal to become our CMS, but the version we need now has to work!
>
> Perhaps this points to the urgency of this task - I can't do more...

Finally, I think the list of precedents deserves more weight than it has been given. I listed "peer 
sites" (other large, global open source projects) that use Drupal vs SilverStripe, because their 
experience can speed up our research--if the tool worked for them, then it almost certainly will 
work for us. In fact, I think this is more effective than building quick demo sites, because they 
have withstood the test of time under the load of large communities working on them in real-world 
conditions. 

In this list you will notice many Drupal sites, but I did not find any SilverStripe sites. 
SilverStripe's own documentation pages are provided by a different platform than SilverStripe, in 
fact! (They use DokuWiki.)

Thanks to everyone who put thought and time into this discussion.

-Ben

Benjamin Horst
bhorst@mac.com
646-464-2314 (Eastern)
www.solidoffice.com


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