[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Eric Johnson]

Hi, all--

Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as 
a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any 
recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a 
website CMS.

We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: 
using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site 
design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and 
providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs 
among other things).

So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.  
Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development 
communities, we're interested in:

* ability to handle heavy traffic
* security
* how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
* social media integration

Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or 
both) would be most appreciated!

I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if 
needed).

Many thanks!

--Eric

Eric D. M. Johnson
New Media Specialist
Monticello
P.O. Box 316
Charlottesville, VA 22902
Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
http://www.monticello.org/
ejohnson at monticello.org

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Laura Mann]

Please reply to the list. We're interested in this topic and I bet we're not
alone. 
Thanks!
Laura
-- 
Laura Mann
Business Development Director
Mediatrope Interactive Studio
207 Powell Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102

415.896.2000 x19 voice
415.896.2212 fax
www.mediatrope.com


On 2/22/10 12:44 PM, "Eric Johnson"  wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as
> a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any
> recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a
> website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign:
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or
> both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if
> needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric
> 
> Eric D. M. Johnson
> New Media Specialist
> Monticello
> P.O. Box 316
> Charlottesville, VA 22902
> Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
> http://www.monticello.org/
> ejohnson at monticello.org
> 
> 
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Gerald Reese]

Here is a site where you can get a comparison of just about any cms with any
other. 

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

I think Drupal is a little more robust than Wordpress in terms of features,
plug-ins, etc. Wordpress is more often than not just used as a blog and is
also capable of managing a site, whereas Drupal is used to manage sites but
can also contain a blog, if you can draw that distinction. We just
implemented a Drupal site as a work-in-progess, and so far so good.

Gerald 


Gerald Reese
Webmaster
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street
Oakland, CA 94607
510/238-4746
www.museumca.org






On 2/22/10 12:44 PM, "Eric Johnson"  wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as
> a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any
> recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a
> website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign:
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or
> both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if
> needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric
> 
> Eric D. M. Johnson
> New Media Specialist
> Monticello
> P.O. Box 316
> Charlottesville, VA 22902
> Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
> http://www.monticello.org/
> ejohnson at monticello.org
> 
> 
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[C MacDonald]

Hi there,

I've built a site in both Wordpress (http://www.artexte.ca) and Drupal (
http://www.traktion.com).

My overall impression from this experience is that there is so much more
that you can do in Drupal without having to touch any PHP. The admin
interface gives you sophisticated control and even just with modules like
Views and CCK you already have so many possibilities for managing and
styling different/custom types of content just using CSS.

Check out the CMS matrix to compare features if you haven't already:
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

Some other comparisons of CMS software:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/drupal-vs-ez-publish-vs-wordpress-vs-cms-made-simple-004744.php

http://www.scribelabs.com/2009/07/21/cms-watch-drupal-vs-joomla-vs-ee-vs-wordpress/


Corina
MacDonald
.cybrarian


On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:

> Hi, all--
>
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal
> as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done
> any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU)
> as a website CMS.
>
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site
> redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the
> overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple
> staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media
> (multiple blogs among other things).
>
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
>  Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
>
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
>
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or
> both) would be most appreciated!
>
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if
> needed).
>
> Many thanks!
>
> --Eric
>
> Eric D. M. Johnson
> New Media Specialist
> Monticello
> P.O. Box 316
> Charlottesville, VA 22902
> Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
> http://www.monticello.org/
> ejohnson at monticello.org
>
>
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
>
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
>
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
>
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
>

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Ryan Hartman]

Hi Eric,

I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress MU as
a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share.

Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal. First
off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more than one
blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a CMS but it's
generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree trying it in the
past.

Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better
suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am quite
biased.

In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything besides a
dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with social
interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus on
Drupal as I touch on your bullet points.

As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If you
don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a module, or do
it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal, each module has an
issue queue where you may report bugs and questions. There are active
mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all Google where you can
find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There is a learning curve but if
you know html / css and basic PHP eg print, foreach, and working with arrays
as well as some linux experience you should be fine. In a few weeks you will
know your way around the admin area, have a basic understanding of views,
panels, and CCK. Once you are proficient, you can build a moderately complex
site within a week easily.

Content editing by multiple staffers:
We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then assigned
one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable with posting
blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.) Once a user has
a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to limit them, and again,
if it not there you can code a permission yourself.

Social media integration:
Hundreds of modules are available for this. Search projects on drupal.org
and see what you can find, more than likely something exists.

Speed:
Drupal's performance is directly related to how many modules you have within
your installation. We have our PHP memory limit set to 128mb which is
recommended. If your site is slowing down, you just throw more hardware at
it. Drupal's performance is much faster than Wordpress which is notorious
for succumbing to events like the "Digg Effect".

Upgrades:
Core upgrades, especially point releases are usually quite simple and do not
require anything more than patching. We patch our installs following this
site: http://fuerstnet.de/en/drupal-upgrade-easier which makes patching a 10
minute affair. Major releases obviously require reworking of templates and
modules, as code is depreciated for better functionality, but the hassle
rewards itself with everything else you are now able to do. The core
upgrades are fairly easy to do and is directly related to how complex your
site actually is.

I hope this helps anyone considering Drupal as a platform for their next
website or redesign. I would also like to add that Drupal is open enough
that we are currently developing direct integration with our collection
management system to allow the public to browse it right from Drupal itself.

If anyone has any questions, please let me know. I will be following this
discussion.

-- 
Ryan Hartman
Web Developer
Amon Carter Museum
3501 Camp Bowie Blvd., Ft. Worth, TX 76107
t: 817.989.5047
http://www.cartermuseum.org


> From: Eric Johnson 
> Reply-To: Museum Computer Network Listserv 
> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:44:50 -0500
> To: "'mcn-l at mcn.edu'" 
> Subject: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
> 
> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as
> a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any
> recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a
> website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign:
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, 

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Chan, Sebastian]

WRT the digg effect and Wordpress - wordpress installs MUST have a
cache-ing plugin installed. We use WP Super Cache which has saved us
from a lot of pain.

I'd not suggest a high traffic site uses WP as a CMS for the whole site
but for small orgs Wordpress can do the job quite well and has a flatter
learning curve than Drupal.

Seb

Sebastian Chan 
A/g Head of Digital, Social & Emerging Technologies
Powerhouse Museum 
street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia 
postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238 
tel - 61 2 9217 0109 
mob - 61 (0) 413 457 126
fax - 61 2 9217 0689
e - sebc at phm.gov.au 
w - www.powerhousemuseum.com 
b - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog

 


--
This email and attachments are for the use of the intended recipient(s) only 
and may contain confidential or legally privileged information or material that 
is copyright of Powerhouse Museum or a third party. If you have received this 
email in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete it. If you 
are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose or distribute this 
e-mail without the author's prior permission. Any views expressed in this 
message and attachments are those of the individual sender and the Powerhouse 
Museum accepts no liability for the content of this message.
-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
Ryan Hartman
Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2010 9:02 AM
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
systems

Hi Eric,

I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress
MU as a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share.

Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal.
First off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more
than one blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a
CMS but it's generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree
trying it in the past.

Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better
suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am
quite biased.

In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything
besides a dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with
social
interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus
on Drupal as I touch on your bullet points.

As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If
you don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a
module, or do it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal,
each module has an issue queue where you may report bugs and questions.
There are active mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all
Google where you can find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There
is a learning curve but if you know html / css and basic PHP eg print,
foreach, and working with arrays as well as some linux experience you
should be fine. In a few weeks you will know your way around the admin
area, have a basic understanding of views, panels, and CCK. Once you are
proficient, you can build a moderately complex site within a week
easily.

Content editing by multiple staffers:
We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then
assigned one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable
with posting blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.)
Once a user has a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to
limit them, and again, if it not there you can code a permission
yourself.

Social media integration:
Hundreds of modules are available for this. Search projects on
drupal.org and see what you can find, more than likely something exists.

Speed:
Drupal's performance is directly related to how many modules you have
within your installation. We have our PHP memory limit set to 128mb
which is recommended. If your site is slowing down, you just throw more
hardware at it. Drupal's performance is much faster than Wordpress which
is notorious for succumbing to events like the "Digg Effect".

Upgrades:
Core upgrades, especially point releases are usually quite simple and do
not require anything more than patching. We patch our installs following
this
site: http://fuerstnet.de/en/drupal-upgrade-easier which makes patching
a 10 minute affair. Major releases obviously require reworking of
templates and modules, as code is depreciated for better functionality,
but the hassle rewards itself with everything else you are now able to
do. The core upgrades are fairly easy to do and is directly related to
how complex your site actually is.

I hope this helps anyone considering Drupal as a platform for their next
website or redesign. I would also like to add that Drupal is open enough
that we are currently developing 

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Perian Sully]

I'm with Seb here. Our own Titus Bicknell is a whiz at making gorgeous
Wordpress sites that have no blog components at all. Like
http://www.marcus-wareing.com/ and http://www.gatewaycanyons.com/
Granted, though, that's a LOT of custom work. But it's nice to see what
CAN be done.

At Magnes, we're building our new site in Drupal, but leaving our blog
and some other components in Wordpress for the simple reason that less
tech-savvy folks need the lower learning-curve of WP. I'm no dummy when
it comes to finding my way around a piece of software, but I have to
admit that I'm finding Drupal a bit of a nightmare to work in and with.
If I had my druthers, I'd do everything in Wordpress, but I know that it
would take an awful lot more work to get it to look the way I'd want it
to as a website.

~Perian

Perian Sully
Collections Information Manager
Web Programs Strategist
The Magnes
Berkeley, CA

-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
Chan, Sebastian
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 2:43 PM
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
systems

WRT the digg effect and Wordpress - wordpress installs MUST have a
cache-ing plugin installed. We use WP Super Cache which has saved us
from a lot of pain.

I'd not suggest a high traffic site uses WP as a CMS for the whole site
but for small orgs Wordpress can do the job quite well and has a flatter
learning curve than Drupal.

Seb

Sebastian Chan 
A/g Head of Digital, Social & Emerging Technologies
Powerhouse Museum 
street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia 
postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238 
tel - 61 2 9217 0109 
mob - 61 (0) 413 457 126
fax - 61 2 9217 0689
e - sebc at phm.gov.au 
w - www.powerhousemuseum.com 
b - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog

 



--
This email and attachments are for the use of the intended recipient(s)
only and may contain confidential or legally privileged information or
material that is copyright of Powerhouse Museum or a third party. If you
have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately
and then delete it. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not
use, disclose or distribute this e-mail without the author's prior
permission. Any views expressed in this message and attachments are
those of the individual sender and the Powerhouse Museum accepts no
liability for the content of this message.
-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
Ryan Hartman
Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2010 9:02 AM
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
systems

Hi Eric,

I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress
MU as a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share.

Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal.
First off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more
than one blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a
CMS but it's generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree
trying it in the past.

Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better
suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am
quite biased.

In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything
besides a dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with
social
interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus
on Drupal as I touch on your bullet points.

As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If
you don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a
module, or do it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal,
each module has an issue queue where you may report bugs and questions.
There are active mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all
Google where you can find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There
is a learning curve but if you know html / css and basic PHP eg print,
foreach, and working with arrays as well as some linux experience you
should be fine. In a few weeks you will know your way around the admin
area, have a basic understanding of views, panels, and CCK. Once you are
proficient, you can build a moderately complex site within a week
easily.

Content editing by multiple staffers:
We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then
assigned one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable
with posting blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.)
Once a user has a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to
limit them, and again, if it not there you can code a permission
yourself.

Social media integration:
Hundreds of modules are avai

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Bruce Wyman]

We've done a half-dozen smaller sites in wordpress and I've flirted 
with the idea using wordpress for our primary site (www) but we've 
never gotten to actual implementation.

Gerald's observation in this thread is a good one -- drupal started 
with the goal of being a comprehensive CMS and has worked it's way 
down the food chain, wordpress the reverse. However, I think the 
developer community around wordpress have decreased the pain point in 
wp playing as a grownup substantially.

We started using wp because the back-end is surprisingly friendly for 
the average user. I always found an extra layer of abstraction in 
drupal that made simple things not straightforward and I always found 
my mental model expecting something slightly different than what 
drupal delivered. Admittedly, that was usually because I was trying 
to do something simple and dirty and drupal was the over-powered tool 
for the simple task (oh, but what an awesome tool at the end of the 
day).

Drupal also generally struck me as something made by developers for 
developers, wordpress seemed to err on the side of users & designers. 
I know that the next major rev of Drupal will be going through a 
major overhaul of the back-end, I'm looking forward to the 
improvements.

I think both systems have incredibly rich user communities 
surrounding them and more often than not, we can find a plugin that's 
close to some sort of functionality that we need / want and we can 
modify from there. Even luckier, there's a rich developer community 
for wordpress around Denver and we know the original developer (Matt) 
so we have something of a fallback position if we got really serious 
and got stuck along the way.

I think drupal's being used for the larger sites that I know of (IMA 
redesign, Balboa Park Collaborative, to name a few) and I think your 
choice depends on familiarity, scope of project, and programming 
skills.

-bw.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Bruce Wyman, Director of Technology
Denver Art Museum  /  100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
office: 720.913.0159  /  fax: 720.913.0002

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Robert Stein]

Hi Folks,

I'm happy to chime in here as the token Drupal guy.  We've certainly found
that Drupal has been an effective solution for us over the past several
years.  We've been relatively successful in bending it and smooshing it up
against lots of different kinds of backend systems for integration.  We've
also found it's templating and theming support to be very flexible and able
to support whatever designs we might think of.

That being said, we do use WordPress as our preferred platform for our blog,
and have found it to be an extremely effective tool for that purpose.  I'll
admit to not being as much of a WordPress expert as many others on this list
likely are, and I suspect given enough time, we'd find an adequate number of
folks who have had good experiences with both solutions.

Truth is, they're both really great open-source platforms that will most
likely support much of what you're looking for. It strikes me that your
specific questions about traffic, customizations, security and upgrades in
the big picture will be well supported by either platform... and both
platforms will offer their own special set of challenges.

Both platforms continue to have active developer communities, both have
really useful sets of module and plugin support, both have a good set of
companies that can support your museum should you find yourself needing
significant help.  Really good signs for a healthy product that will stand a
good chance of success.

If I can veer off into opinion a bit more, I would suggest that the locus of
users for WordPress is probably centered more around a blog style site so
its probably a safe bet that that community will support that aspect of
tools better over the long run.  I would also suggest that the locus of
users for Drupal tends more towards sites that require integration with
datasets, the support of functional requirements or web apps...  in my
opinion, it's probably a safe bet that the Drupal community will continue to
support those areas well.  I should also add that these are not the only two
platforms that would perform well like this, but these are certainly two
good choices and two that we've used specifically at the IMA.

In my experience, both sites can be made easy to use, and both can be
difficult depending on what your trying to accomplish.  We've had success
running Drupal sites with literally hundreds of non-technical authors using
it daily never really noticing that they were authoring webpages in Drupal.

Hope this helps you!  Bottom line, I think you've narrowed the field down to
two excellent choices.

Rob

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Bruce Wyman wrote:

> We've done a half-dozen smaller sites in wordpress and I've flirted
> with the idea using wordpress for our primary site (www) but we've
> never gotten to actual implementation.
>
> Gerald's observation in this thread is a good one -- drupal started
> with the goal of being a comprehensive CMS and has worked it's way
> down the food chain, wordpress the reverse. However, I think the
> developer community around wordpress have decreased the pain point in
> wp playing as a grownup substantially.
>
> We started using wp because the back-end is surprisingly friendly for
> the average user. I always found an extra layer of abstraction in
> drupal that made simple things not straightforward and I always found
> my mental model expecting something slightly different than what
> drupal delivered. Admittedly, that was usually because I was trying
> to do something simple and dirty and drupal was the over-powered tool
> for the simple task (oh, but what an awesome tool at the end of the
> day).
>
> Drupal also generally struck me as something made by developers for
> developers, wordpress seemed to err on the side of users & designers.
> I know that the next major rev of Drupal will be going through a
> major overhaul of the back-end, I'm looking forward to the
> improvements.
>
> I think both systems have incredibly rich user communities
> surrounding them and more often than not, we can find a plugin that's
> close to some sort of functionality that we need / want and we can
> modify from there. Even luckier, there's a rich developer community
> for wordpress around Denver and we know the original developer (Matt)
> so we have something of a fallback position if we got really serious
> and got stuck along the way.
>
> I think drupal's being used for the larger sites that I know of (IMA
> redesign, Balboa Park Collaborative, to name a few) and I think your
> choice depends on familiarity, scope of project, and programming
> skills.
>
> -bw.
> --
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Bruce Wyman, Director of Technology
> Denver Art Museum  /  100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
> office: 720.913.0159  /  fax: 720.913.0002
> 
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http:

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Dana Hutchins]

Following on many good comments about how Drupal compares to Wordpress MU
I'll throw in some comments about my team's experience, most of which has
been with Drupal 6 over the past 18 months, though we have built a few small
sites with WordPress.

We've certainly found that Drupal holds up well when building some very
ambitious user-generated content social media sites such as this extensive
citizen science educational environment recently completed for the Gulf of
Maine Research Institute www.vitalsignsme.org. Many details of this
project's development are profiled in the Drupal Showcase at
http://drupal.org/node/694998.

As we specified and prototyped the architecture of the site we were
concerned that the number of Drupal modules we would need to fulfill the
requirements of the project would be far more than what the underlying
Drupal structure would support in terms of acceptable performance. Most
recommendations were to keep the total number of modules used under 30 or so
with a maximum of 50. The Vital Signs environment is composed of about 80
modules, including 13 original custom modules created by our team.

Performance has been very good and I would highly recommend Drupal for
smaller projects as well as for large, ambitious projects or projects that
will have to grow extensively in phases. A new hosted Drupal 7 solution is
also in the works and should be available by fall 2010. Named Drupal
Gardens, this will be 'Drupal as a service', making it very easy to setup
small sites ala Wordpress or SN ala Ning, yet Drupal Gardens sites will be
fully extensible and able to be moved onto your own Drupal hosting install
whenever desired. This should be a very powerful addition to this already
capable platform. http://buytaert.net/drupal-gardens

You'll find many answers to questions about our Vital Signs project on the
Drupal Showcase site and I'll try to find time to answer others that may
come up.

Dana


Dana Hutchins
Image Works/XhibitNet
541 Congress St.
Portland, ME 04101
207.773.1101 ext.102
dana at imagewks.com
www.ImageWks.com
www.xhibit.net




On 2/22/10 3:44 PM, "Eric Johnson"  wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as
> a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any
> recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a
> website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign:
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or
> both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if
> needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric
> 
> Eric D. M. Johnson
> New Media Specialist
> Monticello
> P.O. Box 316
> Charlottesville, VA 22902
> Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
> http://www.monticello.org/
> ejohnson at monticello.org
> 
> 
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Justin Heideman]

I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great for 
it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a technical/speed 
standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or prettiest code in the 
world, but recent releases have gone a long ways in terms of improvements.

One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu with 
the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will have the 
ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now. WordPress 3.0 also 
expands on the custom post types that were added in 2.9, meaning that instead 
of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll be able to add "events" or 
"books", or whatever you want. 2.9 has this already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for 
it (still in development, though). This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, 
which I think is the main reason folks use Drupal.

To answer your specific questions:

- Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can take 
heavy loads.
- Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it down 
pretty well, and stay on top of updates. 
- Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use publicized 
hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables and do funkier 
things, it can be dicey. 
- Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins that 
do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding relatively 
easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class.

--
Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545

On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal 
> as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done 
> any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) 
> as a website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: 
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site 
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and 
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs 
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.  
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development 
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or 
> both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if 
> needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Eric Johnson]

Let me just jump in without addressing any one post to say how much I 
appreciate everybody's feedback on the Drupal/WordPress MU question--this has 
all been great food for thought!  The museum computer community is amazing.  
(And please don't let this message deter anybody else from responding--all 
thoughts are very welcome!)


--E.

Eric D. M. Johnson
New Media Specialist
Monticello
P.O. Box 316
Charlottesville, VA 22902
Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
http://www.monticello.org/
ejohnson at monticello.org

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Perian Sully]

Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7?
I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but
have never been able to get a clear picture of when.

Thanks!

~P 

Perian Sully
Collections Information Manager
Web Programs Strategist
The Magnes
Berkeley, CA

-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
Justin Heideman
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
systems

I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great
for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a
technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or
prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways
in terms of improvements.

One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu
with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will
have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now.
WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in
2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll
be able to add "events" or "books", or whatever you want. 2.9 has this
already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though).
This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main
reason folks use Drupal.

To answer your specific questions:

- Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can
take heavy loads.
- Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it
down pretty well, and stay on top of updates. 
- Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use
publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables
and do funkier things, it can be dicey. 
- Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins
that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding
relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class.

--
Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545

On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about
Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether
anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress
(especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site
redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating
the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by
multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of
social media (multiple blogs among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two
platforms.  Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their
development communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU
(or both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to
clarify if needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric
___
You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum
Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu)

To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu

To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l

The MCN-L archives can be found at:
http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Dana Hutchins]

Following on many good comments about how Drupal compares to Wordpress MU
I'll throw in some comments about my team's experience, most of which has
been with Drupal 6 over the past 18 months, though we have built a few small
sites with WordPress.

We've certainly found that Drupal holds up well when building some very
ambitious user-generated content social media sites such as this extensive
citizen science educational environment recently completed for the Gulf of
Maine Research Institute www.vitalsignsme.org. Many details of this
project's development are profiled in the Drupal Showcase at
http://drupal.org/node/694998.

As we specified and prototyped the architecture of the site we were
concerned that the number of Drupal modules we would need to fulfill the
requirements of the project would be far more than what the underlying
Drupal structure would support in terms of acceptable performance. Most
recommendations were to keep the total number of modules used under 30 or so
with a maximum of 50. The Vital Signs environment is composed of about 80
modules, including 13 original custom modules created by our team.

Performance has been very good and I would highly recommend Drupal for
smaller projects as well as for large, ambitious projects or projects that
will have to grow extensively in phases. A new hosted Drupal 7 solution is
also in the works and should be available by fall 2010. Named Drupal
Gardens, this will be 'Drupal as a service', making it very easy to setup
small sites ala Wordpress or SN ala Ning, yet Drupal Gardens sites will be
fully extensible and able to be moved onto your own Drupal hosting install
whenever desired. This should be a very powerful addition to this already
capable platform. http://buytaert.net/drupal-gardens

You'll find many answers to questions about our Vital Signs project on the
Drupal Showcase site and I'll try to find time to answer others that may
come up.

Dana


Dana Hutchins
Image Works/XhibitNet
541 Congress St.
Portland, ME 04101
207.773.1101 ext.102
dana at imagewks.com
www.ImageWks.com
www.xhibit.net




On 2/22/10 3:44 PM, "Eric Johnson"  wrote:

> Hi, all--
> 
> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as
> a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any
> recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a
> website CMS.
> 
> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign:
> using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site
> design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and
> providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs
> among other things).
> 
> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms.
> Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development
> communities, we're interested in:
> 
> * ability to handle heavy traffic
> * security
> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> * social media integration
> 
> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or
> both) would be most appreciated!
> 
> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if
> needed).
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> --Eric
> 
> Eric D. M. Johnson
> New Media Specialist
> Monticello
> P.O. Box 316
> Charlottesville, VA 22902
> Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140
> http://www.monticello.org/
> ejohnson at monticello.org
> 
> 
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Jim Spadaccini]

The release date for WordPress 3.0 is early May.

http://wordpress.org/development

I've stayed out of this conversation (for reasons that Eric is aware of!)
but since the conservation seems to of value to the community. My two cents.

We've built a lot of Web sites over the years with various CMS systems and
we've built sites from scratch too using Ruby on Rails, such as the
ExhibitFiles site (http://www.exhibitfiles.org).

In the fall, we redesigned our portfolio site and built a site for our
multitouch framework for Flash and found the latest version of WordPress
really easy to work with.

Also, we recently discovered BuddyPress (http://buddypress.org/), which has
a great of promise for building social networks. Does anyone out there have
any experience with this software package yet?

Jim

-- 
Jim Spadaccini
Ideum "ideas + media"
4895 1/2 Corrales Road
Corrales, NM 87048
505-792-1110
Fax 505-792-
portfolio & blog: http://www.ideum.com
--
twitter: @ideum
flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/ideum
youtube: www.youtube.com/user/multitouchexhibits

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Perian Sully  wrote:

> Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7?
> I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but
> have never been able to get a clear picture of when.
>
> Thanks!
>
> ~P
>
> Perian Sully
> Collections Information Manager
> Web Programs Strategist
> The Magnes
> Berkeley, CA
>
> -Original Message-
> From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
> Justin Heideman
> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM
> To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
> Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
> systems
>
> I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great
> for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a
> technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or
> prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways
> in terms of improvements.
>
> One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu
> with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will
> have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now.
> WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in
> 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll
> be able to add "events" or "books", or whatever you want. 2.9 has this
> already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though).
> This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main
> reason folks use Drupal.
>
> To answer your specific questions:
>
> - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can
> take heavy loads.
> - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it
> down pretty well, and stay on top of updates.
> - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use
> publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables
> and do funkier things, it can be dicey.
> - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins
> that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding
> relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class.
>
> --
> Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
> justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545
>
> On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:
>
> > Hi, all--
> >
> > Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about
> Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether
> anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress
> (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS.
> >
> > We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site
> redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating
> the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by
> multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of
> social media (multiple blogs among other things).
> >
> > So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two
> platforms.  Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their
> development communities, we're interested in:
> >
> > * ability to handle heavy traffic
> > * security
> > * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
> > * social media integration
> >
> > Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU
> (or both) would be most appreciated!
> >
> > I'm happy 

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Andrew Fox]

Drupal 7 is in alpha right now. I think they're planning on releasing it
some time in the second quarter of this year. Of course then you have to
wait for all the modules to catch up, too, so my guess is that we're
probably looking at the fall for a viable Drupal 7 installation.

AF

Andrew Fox
Webmaster
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.750.3615 voice
415.750.3550 fax

de Young
Legion of Honor
http://www.famsf.org



On 2/25/10 8:23 AM, "Perian Sully"  wrote:

> Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7?
> I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but
> have never been able to get a clear picture of when.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ~P 
> 
> Perian Sully
> Collections Information Manager
> Web Programs Strategist
> The Magnes
> Berkeley, CA
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
> Justin Heideman
> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM
> To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
> Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
> systems
> 
> I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great
> for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a
> technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or
> prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways
> in terms of improvements.
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu
> with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will
> have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now.
> WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in
> 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll
> be able to add "events" or "books", or whatever you want. 2.9 has this
> already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though).
> This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main
> reason folks use Drupal.
> 
> To answer your specific questions:
> 
> - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can
> take heavy loads.
> - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it
> down pretty well, and stay on top of updates.
> - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use
> publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables
> and do funkier things, it can be dicey.
> - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins
> that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding
> relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class.
> 
> --
> Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
> justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545
> 
> On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:
> 
>> Hi, all--
>> 
>> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about
> Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether
> anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress
> (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS.
>> 
>> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site
> redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating
> the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by
> multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of
> social media (multiple blogs among other things).
>> 
>> So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two
> platforms.  Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their
> development communities, we're interested in:
>> 
>> * ability to handle heavy traffic
>> * security
>> * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade
>> * social media integration
>> 
>> Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU
> (or both) would be most appreciated!
>> 
>> I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to
> clarify if needed).
>> 
>> Many thanks!
>> 
>> --Eric
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum
> Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
> ___
> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
> 
> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu
> 
> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
> 
> The MCN-L archives can be found at:
> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Justin Heideman]

I've worked with BuddPress a little bit, I was looking at using it for a 
project. It's a hack on top of hack: wpmu is a fairly supported hack of 
wordpress, but buddypress seemed like a convoluted set of plugins on top of 
that. My main beef with it was that it pushed all the user tasks stuff to the 
front end themes, and the WordPress backend remained largely the unchanged. If 
you want to add new fields or models, you're stuck writing your own admin, 
forms, and doing the database updating, which just isn't something that should 
be necessary in 2010. 

I ended up using WP with a custom plugin because I didn't need to do too much. 
But having looked at buddypress, if I needed something like that, I'd just roll 
my own with a contemporary web framework like RoR or django. 

--
Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545

On Feb 25, 2010, at 10:36 AM, Jim Spadaccini wrote:

> The release date for WordPress 3.0 is early May.
> 
> http://wordpress.org/development
> 
> I've stayed out of this conversation (for reasons that Eric is aware of!)
> but since the conservation seems to of value to the community. My two cents.
> 
> We've built a lot of Web sites over the years with various CMS systems and
> we've built sites from scratch too using Ruby on Rails, such as the
> ExhibitFiles site (http://www.exhibitfiles.org).
> 
> In the fall, we redesigned our portfolio site and built a site for our
> multitouch framework for Flash and found the latest version of WordPress
> really easy to work with.
> 
> Also, we recently discovered BuddyPress (http://buddypress.org/), which has
> a great of promise for building social networks. Does anyone out there have
> any experience with this software package yet?
> 
> Jim

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Titus Bicknell]

WordPress 3.0 is due out 5/1/10 - the alpha is out and very impressive, public 
beta will be 3/15/10. As mentioned the main changes are the merge with WP MU 
and a flexible taxonomy structure allowing it to function much more like Drupal.

To add to the discussion some thoughts:

whether you use MU or the network mode in 3.0 the wordpress.com model where 
each site is restricted to the same group of themes and a handful of core 
plugins may not be the best approach to managing multiple content streams - I 
do not want to use the word blog intentionally as WP is capable of being a full 
blown CMS with a couple of small tweaks to the default roles:

you can create multiple time-based sections authored by distinct people within 
the same instance of WP by simply creating a category page for each section and 
assigning that category to new posts; you can define category specific 
contributors - users who can create content but not publish it - authors - 
users who can author and publish their own or edit the work of contributors, 
and editors who can author edit and approve the work of contributors and 
editors;

you can customize the WP install folder to include certain plugins and themes 
so spawning complete standalone sites can be done in very little time; once 
enabled you can actually configure them all to run off the same user table OR 
enable AD authentication and full SSO.

I am not saying that Drupal or any other CMS out there cannot do all these 
things too - I just want to ensure that Wordpress is not excluded from the 
viable CMS debate unfairly; it is a great blogging platform no doubt but it is 
also a very flexible, powerful and secure CMS as well.

Titus Bicknell | @titusbicknell | +1.240.271.9735
titus at bicknell.com | http://www.titusbicknell.com
703 Dale Drive | Silver Spring | MD 20910 | USA

On Feb 25, 2010, at 11:23 AM, Perian Sully wrote:

> Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7?
> I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but
> have never been able to get a clear picture of when.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ~P 
> 
> Perian Sully
> Collections Information Manager
> Web Programs Strategist
> The Magnes
> Berkeley, CA
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
> Justin Heideman
> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM
> To: Museum Computer Network Listserv
> Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management
> systems
> 
> I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great
> for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a
> technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or
> prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways
> in terms of improvements.
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu
> with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will
> have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now.
> WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in
> 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll
> be able to add "events" or "books", or whatever you want. 2.9 has this
> already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though).
> This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main
> reason folks use Drupal.
> 
> To answer your specific questions:
> 
> - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can
> take heavy loads.
> - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it
> down pretty well, and stay on top of updates. 
> - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use
> publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables
> and do funkier things, it can be dicey. 
> - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins
> that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding
> relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class.
> 
> --
> Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center
> justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545
> 
> On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote:
> 
>> Hi, all--
>> 
>> Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about
> Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether
> anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress
> (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS.
>> 
>> We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site
> redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating
> 

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[James Keeline]

When you visit http://drupal.org/project/Modules and search individual 
third-party modules that you might be using, you will see pledges by many 
developers to have their module(s) ready on the day that Drupal 7 is released.  
Smaller modules and internally-developed modules could be delayed, of course.

Having worked with Drupal since late 2006 (4.7), I agree that some major 
version upgrades have seen a delay in the availability of key modules.  
However, I think the Drupal folks are working to remedy this for D7.

I think the plan is to make the release after DrupalCon in SF.

James Keeline
San Diego, CA


--- On Thu, 2/25/10, Andrew Fox  wrote:

> Drupal 7 is in alpha right now. I think they're planning on releasing 
> it some time in the second quarter of this year. Of course then you 
> have to wait for all the modules to catch up, too, so my guess is
> that we're probably looking at the fall for a viable Drupal 7
> installation.
> 
> AF
> 
> Andrew Fox

[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems

[Ari Davidow]

In the best of circumstances, most people not committed to the cutting
edge will wait at least six months post release for initial bugs to be
ironed out, more obscure modules to be upgraded and tested, and to
learn the ins and outs of the new development environment. So, I'd say
that one should be looking at D7 for a new site today only if the site
is more than a year forward (3/4 year if you feel terribly oppressed).
It is going to be exciting if all goes well (and it looks like much
will definitely go well, at the least), but it will also introduce
lots of major paradigm changes--for the better, I think--in how Drupal
works and is maintained. But that's coming. D6 is now ;-).

ari

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:25 PM, James Keeline  wrote:
> When you visit http://drupal.org/project/Modules and search individual 
> third-party modules that you might be using, you will see pledges by many 
> developers to have their module(s) ready on the day that Drupal 7 is 
> released. ?Smaller modules and internally-developed modules could be delayed, 
> of course.
>
> Having worked with Drupal since late 2006 (4.7), I agree that some major 
> version upgrades have seen a delay in the availability of key modules. 
> ?However, I think the Drupal folks are working to remedy this for D7.
>
> I think the plan is to make the release after DrupalCon in SF.
>
> James Keeline
> San Diego, CA
>
>
> --- On Thu, 2/25/10, Andrew Fox  wrote:
>
>> Drupal 7 is in alpha right now. I think they're planning on releasing
>> it some time in the second quarter of this year. Of course then you
>> have to wait for all the modules to catch up, too, so my guess is
>> that we're probably looking at the fall for a viable Drupal 7
>> installation.
>>
>> AF
>>
>> Andrew Fox
>
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