WordPress for Site Management

[Skip Knox]

We are moving off our Windows servers over to a LAMP environment. You know how when you move you not only move your stuff, you start re-thinking Things In General?

So, one of the things we've been thinking about is a fundamental change in how web presence is managed. Put simply, there is a move from client-side to server-side. In the older model, people ftp files down to their desktop, use an editor to make changes, ftp the files back to the server, and view them. Rinse and repeat.

In the newer model, people edit their files directly on the server, whether through a CMS or a blog or in social networking milieus. It is perhaps readily apparent that the newer model is simpler (and cheaper), there are other effects consequent on the change.

The most striking is plugins. When you edit on the server, you can now consider plugins to your environment to add functionality. We could get plugins to Dreamweaver too, but they are all about facilitating the editing process. With site plugins (as I'll call them), it's all about adding functionality to the site itself.

The term current in the WordPress world is site management system. It is short of content management because there's no sharing of objects across sites. It really is focused on each site separately, but with the same management software serving out those myriad sites. Others will follow this road, but so far WordPress is the pioneer here.

We already know WP is easy to use, satisfies the needs of most users, etc. Unknown at this point is how well it will handle the many specialty needs of our diverse users. But hey, for special needs we can still use flat files and traditional programming.

In a little while my colleague and myself will be pitching this to our campus web group. I expect to hear lots of interest and lots of "when can we start" (answer: not yet!). I'm really more interested in hearing the buzz in, say, six months.

One last item. I think, but I don't yet know, that WP on campus may mean an end to the site makeover. That alone would be a huge boost in productivity. Leastways, that's one of the pitches to management! :-)

[William Frankhouser]

Agree. I see that WP would be a better fit for you at this time. Even though Drupal/Joomla type sites can be fairly simple like WP.. but on install WP, makes a very simple user interface and way to just click "New post" and "New Page"... very simple

[Skip Knox]

Absolutely. We fully understand the difference between site management and content management.

A CMS brings its own challenges, however. Staffing is the showstopper right now, with our school looking at cutting rather than adding positions. But even before the Great Capitalist Collapse, I was beginning to question the usefulness of a CMS at the enterprise level for a university.

The issue is too complex for a comment box, so I'll oversimplify to this: a CMS presumes consistency and central organization. The former is unsustainable over time and the latter simply isn't ever going to happen. Not at a university. I now see a CMS as having potential in slices of the institution. Which brings us back to the showstopper, just now.

WP is, for us, a good intermediate fit. Better than Dreamweaver-itis, and more feasible than a full CMS.

[William Frankhouser]

WordPress is great to a point. You can start customizing certain features in it or plugins, but its takes more time to duplicate it across multiple sites. If you want more control over users and more of a web site.. and not just an extension to the blog, I would recommend other open source CMS like Drupal, Joomla, etc.

I like WordPress for very quick pages and added bonus is a blog! Anything mid size, I look at the CMS for site setup.. with more ability to control it as a full site

[Skip Knox]

Mark, could you elaborate on "easily share content across multiple sites" and of what "too cumbersome" consisted? I am concerned about this one too.

I understand "multiple sites" to mean multiple blogs. Maybe with separate admins maybe with the same one. I understand "share content" to mean you have an image at Site1 (blog1) and you want Site2 to be able to use it without duplicating it. Same would go for other content types.

I'd like the details on what the expectations were about what's easy and what exactly proved cumbersome.

[Mark Greenfield]

We have used WordPress for site management on two of my sites. For one it worked great and it still in use. The other didn't fair so well, mainly because we tried to come up with a way to easily share content across multiple sites and it became too cumbersome.

Good luck with this and keep us posted on your progress.