The Red Brick Times

Dear RBT'ers,

Y'know, as blogs go (and much to my surprise) tRBT has been around for awhile. We started up more or less on a whim way back when Blogger first became available. At that time Blogger provided the only available and easy-to-use interface that could be configured in a variety of ways and with a variety of hosting solutions. Way cool.

Well, as the years went by blogging hit the big time and many a coder stayed up all night. There are now lots of free, well supported, blog/content packages available which, once installed, run solely on the supported web server. This is a good thing because, in general, it's always nice to simplify. With Blogger we have multiple sites (Blogger/Google/7393.org) all in the mix making it less possible to do certain creative things and (sometimes) harder to debug. That can change. 7393 can run everything.

Many's the time I've thought of dumping Blogger in favor of another system but never did. That would have meant a big time commitment to install/config an alternative plus everyone would have to re-register and learn a new GUI for posting. I have the time now but still fear too many members would say "fuck it" and just lurk which, alas, too many do already. Tell you the truth, if I ever see multiple months with just me posting (and maybe Andy, Hi Andy!) I'll be tempted to drop the whole thing. I never meant this as a personal blog.

Anyway.... I'm game to give it a whack. Is it worth looking into? What'd ya think? It's possible to run one as a temporary demo if we want to take a closer look....

Here are some alternative content systems, all of which would work for us:

Easy ones:
Wordpress
b2evolution
Nucleus CMS

Others:
MovableType
Drupal

If you're at all interested please take a look at examples of each and chime on in! Your two cents accepted here.
Posted 7:29 AM by whatley (4) comments

       Comments:

I glanced at the different blog programs which they want to call content management systems (CMS). I'm not much of a blogger (newsflash!) so I can't really help evaluate them. What do you think the advantage would be if you switched to Moveable Type? or Drupal? Would it be easier for members to post pictures? add RSS from some left wing rag? write a collaborative book? Would anybody want to do that?

# posted by  Ray : January 05, 2008 9:10 AM
 
The immediate advantage is that we'd only be dependent on one site (7393.org). As things exist now if Blogger or Google or 7393 has problems tRBT is affected. Simple is (generally) better.

Yes, we can do anything we want with pretty much all of the linked CMS's. A special page with group RSS feeds, an RSS feed from tRBT (kind of overkill but whatever), a group calendar, a book review/comment page, photo insertion (Gallery was my attempt but doesn't seem to be used much)... If users want it (and promise to use it) I'll figure a way to put it in and make it colaboritave.

# posted by  whatley : January 05, 2008 10:11 AM
 
I would be supportive of anything that makes it easier to post links and photos. Blogging for Dummies would be helpful. My skill level is low in this regard and I suspect others are in the same boat.
I took a look at all of the sites and have to admit that I am still intimidated by the language. I am in favor of anything that makes communication easier. I think you would see more participation.
Be careful what you wish for - you could be overloaded with the pent up contributions of former lurkers.

# posted by  Terri S : January 05, 2008 10:14 AM
 
Criteria #1: Ease of posting.

I didn't get deep into the demos on the various CMS's I linked to but ease of post/link/upload would certainly be of importance.

More?

# posted by  whatley : January 05, 2008 10:20 AM
 
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