CMS use cases

[Karsten Wade]

Seth asked for some use cases that show what a content management system
(CMS) can do.  I wanted to run them by this group, see what your ideas
are.

What would the CMS do?  Manage content for Fedora sites.
fedoraproject.org, primarily.

There are multiple roles:

* Editor - logs into a workbench with entire work queue visible:
  - Can approve content or push it back for further writing/edits
    - If configured, cannot edit the document, can only push forward or
backward
  - Push to publish
    - Directly to Web, or enables an autobuild of some kind, or pushes
to a higher level publisher

* Writer
  - Write content from scratch or amalgamate
    - Can use built-in CMS editing functionality, attach a document of
some kind, or check into CVS and point at that as content submission.
  - May modify a work when it is pushed back from an editor.
  - Modification of published work generates a new workflow, requiring
the same level of approval as previously
  - If configured, may retire or set expiration date for own content.
  - When ready, can push own content to editor

* Lead Writer
  - As above for Writer, can also be injected into the workflow for a
pre-approval/denial step prior to pushing to Editor.
  - Can act upon any content from project they lead as if the sole
writer, that is, can modify into the workflow, set expiration, etc.

* Publisher/Editor-in-chief
  - Final approver for sensitive content (legal, special marketing)
  - May have ability to directly edit content, depending on usage model.

* Content Manager
  - Looks for content to retire or revitalize
    - Can immediately retire or set expiration date
    - Can dig up old content and push it for a rewrite
      - Lands in appropriate writer queue

That's what I've got off the top of my head.

Thanks - Karsten

[Tommy Reynolds]

Uttered Karsten Wade , spake thus:
> That's what I've got off the top of my head.

I'll be you feel much lighter now.

All this sounds terribly formalized; is there really a need for so
many task divisions?  I have no experience with such a CMS, so I'm
not qualified to have an opinion, but where is the current setup
inadequate?  I'm not objecting, just asking for a sales pitch ;-)

Cheers

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 06:28 -0600, Tommy Reynolds wrote:
> Uttered Karsten Wade , spake thus:
> > That's what I've got off the top of my head.
>
> I'll be you feel much lighter now.

Much.
> All this sounds terribly formalized; is there really a need for so
> many task divisions?  I have no experience with such a CMS, so I'm
> not qualified to have an opinion, but where is the current setup
> inadequate?  I'm not objecting, just asking for a sales pitch ;-)

See, this was why I asked this question here. :)

Simple, the folks on fedora-websites-list have been discussing using a
CMS to manage the formal Fedora websites.  One advantage is that it is
like a Wiki, user friendly to readers, authors, and content maintainers.

I just found myself trying to explain what a CMS brings that, say, a
Wiki with ACLs cannot do.  To be honest, I'm not settled on my thoughts
about what to do.  A CMS has value.  We could also install the lightest
framework (Moin Moin + Python based framework, like Django) and build
what we need as we go.

That, however, requires resources that might be elsewhere.  So, yeah,
etc., just trying to scope the idea a bit.  :)

thanks - Karsten

[Stuart Ellis]

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 12:50 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote:
> Simple, the folks on fedora-websites-list have been discussing using a
> CMS to manage the formal Fedora websites.  One advantage is that it is
> like a Wiki, user friendly to readers, authors, and content maintainers.
>
> I just found myself trying to explain what a CMS brings that, say, a
> Wiki with ACLs cannot do.  To be honest, I'm not settled on my thoughts
> about what to do.  A CMS has value.  We could also install the lightest
> framework (Moin Moin + Python based framework, like Django) and build
> what we need as we go.

I think that the issue that I have with Wiki is more to do with the
expectations than the technology itself.

Pages on a Wiki site are never finalised, and get edited incrementally
by whoever has something to contribute. For prominent pages I think that
there ought to be a way of separating in-progress work from a
done/approved/unleash on the public version - perhaps more a feature of
CMS.

At a technical level I don't really distinguish between Wikis with
access control and CMS with on-line editing - different CMS/Wiki/portal
products do seem to encourage different working styles, though.

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

Wikis often have poor navigation.  The current moinmoin wiki definitely 
has poor navigation.  A good CMS should have some sense of hierarchy 
available, imho.

--g

_____________________  ____________________________________________
  Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have
 Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent.  the
             Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the 
                     ] [ dumb.  --mcluhan

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Stuart Ellis wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 12:50 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote:
> > Simple, the folks on fedora-websites-list have been discussing using a
> > CMS to manage the formal Fedora websites.  One advantage is that it is
> > like a Wiki, user friendly to readers, authors, and content maintainers.
> >
> > I just found myself trying to explain what a CMS brings that, say, a
> > Wiki with ACLs cannot do.  To be honest, I'm not settled on my thoughts
> > about what to do.  A CMS has value.  We could also install the lightest
> > framework (Moin Moin + Python based framework, like Django) and build
> > what we need as we go.
>
> I think that the issue that I have with Wiki is more to do with the
> expectations than the technology itself.
>
> Pages on a Wiki site are never finalised, and get edited incrementally
> by whoever has something to contribute. For prominent pages I think that
> there ought to be a way of separating in-progress work from a
> done/approved/unleash on the public version - perhaps more a feature of
> CMS.
>
> At a technical level I don't really distinguish between Wikis with
> access control and CMS with on-line editing - different CMS/Wiki/portal
> products do seem to encourage different working styles, though.
>
> --
>
> Stuart Ellis
>
> [e-mail]
>
> Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/
>
> GPG key ID: 7098ABEA
> GPG key fingerprint: 68B0 E291 FB19 C845 E60E  9569 292E E365 7098 ABEA

[Stuart Ellis]

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 18:35 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
> Wikis often have poor navigation.  The current moinmoin wiki definitely 
> has poor navigation.  A good CMS should have some sense of hierarchy 
> available, imho.

I agree. That what kind of what I was driving at... MoinMoin is designed
to be unstructured to match the Wiki way of working (throw down stuff as
you need it). We can beat the current set of pages into a particular
shape, and use the technical functions to do CMS stuff, but it will
always encourage a loose structure, and contributors will always treat
it as a Wiki rather than a standard heirarchical site.