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.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Koehler on -
My guess is Journalists have little presence in open-source CMS development, just as they have minimal presence in most technical groups. That's a big cultural problem we have -- techies just don't see journalism as a forward-thinking, cutting-edge field because, well, it isn't. Why would they want to work on journalistic/publishing endeavors when so many other pursuits are more dynamic and profitable? Then journalists themselves just aren't given the time or reward to be true techie innovators.
As for why FOSS CMSs fail to fill out their britches for big journal/newspaper publishing, I think you hit the nail on the head: they're driven by enthusiasts who hack and oversell. They're mostly aiming for blogs and side projects, not full-fledged and professional publications. I'm not sure how that could be overcome.
Other than take a look at something that isn't FOSS. Personally I'm a fan of ExpressionEngine, which for a couple hundred bucks has vast capabilities, is scalable and extensible. The learning curb is a little steeper than others, but the rewards are great. And there's a solid professional community to back it up, building good add-ons not flooding the market with crap. (The new version coming this year is aiming to make EE much easier to use, customizable for end user, and fully integrate CodeIgnitor PHP framework.)
It's probably unrealistic to expect all you desire from a FOSS CMS. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
But I haven't used Joomla or Drupal much at all. So someone correct me if I'm wrong. -
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Permalink Reply by Dan Knauss on
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I've been able to do everything I want (and more) with Joomla, just *the way* it does some things is not ideal.
I've heard the same good reports on EE a couple of times, but something in the feature list put me off last time I looked. I guess the main question there is, how stable and desirable is it going to be in 5 years? The cost seems fine, but I'd be concerned about being locked in worse than is possible with some FOSS abandonware. Can you get full access to files and databases? -
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Koehler on
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Yes, the way things have to be done is always the frustrating part. Probably true of all CMSs?
I don't worry too much about long-term viability. They've around for 5 years and been adding staff lately. In the two or so years I've been using it, their customer service has been always stellar.
And yes, I get full access to all my files and the mySQL database it runs on (through EE backend or phpMyAdmin). It's all on my server - if that's what you're asking?
As it's now being built fully on their FOSS PHP framework, even if they go belly up somehow, I'm pretty sure there'd be a strong community to carry it on in some form.
The downsides are the cost and the learning curve. -
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Koehler on
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FYI, Company history.
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thanks. yes, that is what I meant--can you host EE yourself and/or get at all the files, code, databases... good deal.
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PS: the same goes for "citizen journalists," who are more prone to use FOSS... [I dislike the implications of the term "citizen journalist" though they are revealing and a good discussion starter. I meant to refer to anyone doing anything recognizably journalistic in nature on the web.]
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Permalink Reply by Steve Yelvington on
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See Newspapers on Drupal and the Knight Drupal Initiative.
I'd like to know what specific pieces of functionality you think are missing from the Drupal platform that you find essential to the operation of a Web publishing CMS for journalism. I have my own list (starting with good input support for NITF and NewsML).
Many newspapers are already using Drupal extensively, but few are contributing to the open-source process. Morris Communications, which has donated several important modules including Domain Access (developed for Skirt.com) and Mysite (personalization tool), is the notable exception. -
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Specific pieces of functionality I think are missing: The Drupal administrative UI is badly organized and hard to navigate but slowly improving, yet the lack of a real separation between a front and back end is going to be a chronic confusion unless there is a repackaging that includes an admin template and blocks can easily be segregated for front end publication only. Things like the default entry formatting options are a brick wall to people who read the help descriptions and say "HTML, PHP, what?"
A CMS that's to be widely adopted should, at a minimum, have "latest/most popular news" modules/blocks, a content rotator block of some kind, something on par with FCKeditor.
That's the basics I can think of off the top of my head. On the plus side, Drupal's faults seem to be surface-level (which is hugely important for most potential users) while its strengths are at its core. It should have a long and strong future and be able to transition to social publishing easily.
The main problem I have with Drupal now is that it needs to be extensively customized for use by a non-technically literate staff, and customizing both its functionality and design is far more cumbersome than with Joomla, Wordpress, and other FOSS CMSes. As a consequence of this, I have never liked working with it as much as other platforms, and I don't recommend it for clients unless they want me to take longer (and cost more) to deliver something I can do better and faster with another system. (An exception would be where the client already "gets" Drupal or is dead set on it, and its rss and taxonomy capabilities are critical to the project.)
I've heard some separate Drupal distributions may be emerging along with more attention to the user interface and inclusion of a text editor in the official core. I think CCK and Views are supposed to become part of the core package, which is a no brainer, since you can't do much without them. The typical Drupal enthusast in my experience would say, what's so hard about installing that stuff? It's not hard. What is a pain is being the millionth person to try Drupal and find out you have to install this stuff, but first you have to find it. And in the case of certain functions, like a text editor, you are faced with multiple options requiring you to do a lot of tedious searching and reading to be able to guess which one will work best for you and maybe not turn out to be (or already be) abandonware increasing your client's TCO. (This is also a frustration with Joomla, to an extent, but not nearly as badly as with Drupal.)
I've also heard it said that drupal.org is drupal's main problem, and there's a lot of truth to that for these kinds of reasons. The original Drupal developer's new site/service that imitates the same smart move by Automattic/Wordpress and SixApart/MovableType/TypePad/etc. is a good idea. I know there's also "Drupal for Users," which I glanced at the other day but haven't really dug into. A lot of people need that. I want to build site the owners can operate as their own tool. This often takes some pushing, but more so with Drupal. I have had one project where "design" turned into being the CMS myself. Different people on the staff (ages 20s-40s) tried to operate Drupal and gave up.
I would guess the more "user friendly" developments in Drupal are a response to the realization that there's a worthwhile and large potential user base (and frustrated current users) beyond the "we can make it do anything, so it's fine" attitude of the tribal hacker culture Drupal and many other FOSS projects seem to have.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the "technical" problems I have with Drupal are probably more deeply rooted in the way it works as a FOSS community, i.e. eccentrically. I think it would help Drupal to reach its best future by changing whatever it takes to minimize the kind of myopic, enthusiast pitch I invariably run into when dealing with Drupal users and developers. I have yet to h -
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(is there a word limit here?)
...I have yet to hear a non-emotional, purely rational pitch for Drupal from such people in relation to general or specific tasks, or pragmatic "marketing"/packaging and user needs. Some of this seems to come from typical FOSS developer/hacker tribalism, and some of it is probably fed by the Howard Dean/Democrat/Netroot politicized "progressive" branding or cachet Drupal received and has visibly sustained. I fundamentally distrust and withhold credibility from people who make business decisions on a pure brand name/emotional/identity politics/all-the-X-people-are-using-it basis. People who are clearly unable to select tools (which is what a CMS is) on a case by case basis to suit each unique project are no help to me or anyone else who refuses to make time/work/money investment decisions that way. (Which is what deployment of any CMS, "free" or not actually is.) Someone who builds sites with the same CMS for 2-4+ years has a one-size-fits-all mentality that is a disadvantage to clients.
Part of the problem in the FOSS CMS community may be that my kind of concern is liable to be regarded as "commercial" and opposed to or outside the concern of the developer/hacker culture, but any informed *business* (journalistic or otherwise), is going to think the same way because it is in their best interest to do so. The kind of FOSS development and support model Magento eCOmmerce is presenting could and probably should be the dominant model. Drupal is pretty far away from that.
Is it likely that newspapers using drupal are not turning code over to the drupal community because they have hacked the system so much to do their own thing, it's not usable outside their shop, and releasing whatever they've done would have the effect of a fork? Also, some people make a good case for the idea that releasing code you can't/won't support is worse than not releasing it. -
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I think many of the issues you raise are right at the heart of Acquia's business plan as they become, in essence, the RedHat of the Drupal world.
As for contributions: I don't know why news companies are poor participants in FOSS, but I hope it's just plain lack of understanding of the benefits, or of being gunshy about having to support it, and not because they've hacked the software. Because hacking on existing code is absolutely the wrong way to develop in the Drupal environment, where pretty much everything is designed to let you implement an override (forms API, for example).
We made a lot of mistakes like that on our second Drupal-based newspaper project (Savannahnow.com). It's the well-documented Road to Drupal Hell, and we won't do it again. Since then we've launched dozens of hyperlocal sites, radio sites, and national sites (Skirt.com, Wheretraveler.com) with quite a bit of customization without violating the "thou shalt not touch core code" rule.
There are nearly 2,000 contributed modules for Drupal 5, which is both a blessing and a curse. Pretty much every open-source rich text editor has been adapted for Drupal, but you only need one, and that means you have to examine/test/decide, then figure out how to configure. I regard that richness as a great asset of Drupal, but I do recognize that it comes at a price.
Just knowing about great little tools like Nodequeue requires time and energy.
There's been discussion, off and on, of developing a news-focused package of Drupal tools that would let you skip a lot of that investigation, testing and decisionmaking.
The Installation Profile system provides a way to wipe out the laborious processes of configuring the necessary modules.
A set of templates designed to meet newspaper industry needs (standard ad units, 300-300-300 layouts, etc.) is an obvious need.
But I've found that many of the 1400 or so daily newspapers in the United States have no one on staff even capable of unrolling a .tar.gz file, much less figuring this stuff out, even if it doesn't involve a single line of coding.
Two years ago I put together a Knight Challenge Grant proposal that would have solved all of these issues (and many more). One of the outputs would have been an integrated package including themes (packages of templates) optimized for a large-scale news/community site, and another would have been an Amazon EC2 system image with the basics already installed. The proposal advanced to the approval stage, but I was unfortunately forced to withdraw it at the last minute due to some issues at work.
So now we still don't have this problem solved, and at the moment I'm right in the middle of a major internal project to do pretty much the same thing (minus the EC2 image) for our own newspapers: creating a new standard deployment package of Drupal functionality, preconfiguration, skinnable page geometries, etc. -
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You'd think someone would make a nice contribution index/review/discussion site that's easily navigable and plays well in Google...
Yes the dailies seem genuinely clueless down to how computers and much else are used in the workplace.
That sounds liek a great proposal you had. Who had the proposal for software that would turn inDesign files into Drupal content? Did that ever happen? -
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