WiserEarth Suggestions
Building a better WiserEarth together
A place for ideas and exchanges to happen. Please provide your feedback and suggestions to improve WiserEarth here.
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Feb 11, 2008
Updated: Nov 25, 2009
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Public
Platform comparisons
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Comparing the software platforms:
Add what platforms you'd like to see compared and list the criteria for the comparisons.
Self-hosted frameworks (can be downloaded):
- Drupal
- Plone
- Django
- Joomla
- Elgg
- etc.
Online service platforms (can't be downloaded):
- WiserEarth
- Airset
- Ecomotion
- Ning
- etc.
Let's build a table similar to or using information from:
- http://www.cmsmatrix.org
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems
- http://www.opensourcecms.com/
Criteria:
- Longer term view - ownership and security
- Control and independence
- The lack of ease of use for the admin and end user. This has always been coupled with a lack of resources.
- ease and simplicity as key
- education - needs to be minimal otherwise we get bottlenecks
- bottlenecks, power and ownership
- Some people at WiserEarth started doing some of this work a while ago - feel free to edit and add to this google doc. Criteria are on this page.
- Also worth reading this document on WiserEarth's groupware functionality.
Comments (1 - 20 of 36)
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@angusparker - thought it might be useful...
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@Ed: Thanks for the list - its a good hit list for WE API driven widgets/modules on other platforms.
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@macro - from what I can see (you can review the comments but it's lots of pages), people are using google for listserv, some docs, and calender stuff; this is all young initiatives are after really - their tool use becomes more sophisticated as they go along.
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3+ months later, I still have not figured out Joomla at my my global-villages.info site. I am fed up now, I do not want to know how to use it anymore. i am no genius, but I have been online before there was even an World Wide Web, designed two websites, tweaking and using lots of programs. I acquired Macronet.org in 1993 when there was still an 8 letter limit on names. My nonprofit budget close to zero.
I tried a Plone demo, and did not do much better. It is unclear as to what sort of PROPRIETARY one is talking about, when it is only so few, probably high priced people, who are going to be able to run programs like Plone, Joomla, and even Drupal. In the meantime, hosted socal programs will become more and more sophisticated and navigationally simpler in the coming years.
I am curious, though, what does GOOGLE really host? I tried using their site designing area, and it is so underdeveloped and badly integrated at the moment, that a real website, like Ning provides, is impossible. As far as components, Google has some excellent components for searching, maps, and RSS feeds. |
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good news @angusparker in parallel to this, to get an idea of what people are out there using (named platforms as oppsosed to tools) I did a word count of the names of the 'big' platforms (third party and self hosted) mentioned in the comments in our survey - put these in a graph and 'hey presto' we can see:
Ning Yahoo Wordpress Skype Drupal Joomla (Plone very low down but I suspect that is due to its intensely tech nature)
More on page 25 of the latest survey presentation
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One of the things we are excited about at WiserEarth is having Drupal / Plone / Joomla modules that draw on the upcoming WiserEarth API to share such things as organizations, resources, jobs, and events on those platforms. We would be happy to assist developers with advice if someone wants to take that on.
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Have just had very interesting meeting with developers who work with both Plone and Drupal. I thought this should be recorded here; with the caveat that this is a report from people using the platforms, not intimate personal experience... hence I am not adding it straight to the wiki page.
They are keen on both platforms and say they are very different and the decision is about the context in which the platforms are wielded above everything else.
They offer significant cautions around using Plone to suport the core functions for Transition's context (see what is the web project for the functions we're after- organisationally it is likely that many different people will work with the core functionality, our hosting needs to be as light as possible, changes will be frequent and unpredictable, money will be tight and deadlines tighter).
Plone is absolutely great *if* you have a deep technical resource inhouse, readily and instantly accesible with significant knowledge about your particular configuration - basically if they built it themselves, so they are fully familiar with exactly how it works. Plone is a sturdy and hardcore platform; it can support big scalable needs; it is more 'industrial' than Drupal.
Plone is more power hungry than Drupal and neeeds more server facilities.
Problems arising in Plone can bring the whole configuration down without any clear error messages; it is really hard to work out problems arising in Plone as they could be deep in different applications; which would require deep technical knowledge of the language, framework and particular configuration. Fixing a problem on an unfamiliar Plone configuration may not be possible for many people.
This would make it hard to transfer between developers, and harder still to resolve issues that arose.
Plone developers are thinner on the ground than Drupal developers and probably cost more. This is a risk.
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@garyalex - sorry! more simple:
In the local and regional presence pilot, is it important that that an initiative's web presence (if provided by this platform) is nested into a regional structure? Is this reflected in the software architecture (e.g. with feeds between the presences, shared physical events etc.) and social model (e.g. regional web/comms support meetings)?
hope that's better! |
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@edmittance: I'm not sure I understand your question, but will try to answer! 8-) Yes, our regional pilot is in some ways specific to East Anglia, and is meant to support and link the local transition initiatives in our area. Very recently, we have been hearing about several more regional initiatives. That means that we should also be looking to contact these and begin to link them, so that we all learn how to do this, as their are no existing blueprints.
As I begin to think through our recommendations in this area, I think one will be that we set up a forum to link the embryonic regional networks, and another being to offer to host several of them using the same software as Transition East. (More technically, according to my developer, we could run 4 or 5 independent regional networks on the same server using copies of the same developed version of Plone on a single Zope platform, with very small increased need for resources on the host server.) |
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@garyalex - aside to the user/admin level functionality (which I think is correct in the project definition page, please add/edit if not), isn't a core element of the Local and Regional Presence stream the very 'regional' nature of it? That these are nested in a way which would reflect the regional nature of the Transition initiatives, in line with Transition's ambition to de-centralise towards the regions (in the UK)?
@charlessuchu - your clarity appreciated - business-wise, this is moving across to 'ownership' of IP (code), which relates to the 'power' that Transition Network might have over its direction (?)
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Just for reference PHP is "Open Source", but it is not "GPL". Reference: http://www.php.net/license/
It is the underlying scripting language for other, further up the line, open source applications including: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, WiserEarth.
Like everything in the world of "open source", it's layers upon layers of software with some type of open source license.
In comparison Ning is "closed source" itself, even though it is created on open source technology like PHP. Ning doesn't release all the code for their application, just parts of it.
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@macrocosm: Just a quick reply Sandi. I have one programmer, working very much part-time on the software, really only since the beginning of this year. But, he is a Plone core developer, who really knows what he is doing and is very fast. (It builds on earlier work which clarified a lot of the ideas, but he started over from a standard Plone 3.)
If, having read my document carefully, you think you could set up something on grou.ps (or elsewhere) that actually does incorporate most of the functionality and can be extended to the rest, I would be thrilled and would be happy to support you doing it. Please let me know about this, as it is something that should be included in our report on the local and regional pilot. |
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@Macrocosm: FYI: The map/starburst functionality on WiserEarth is OpenSource code developed by a Russian programmer which we just plugged in. You could use this code in any platform you adopt.
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i think i commented on this before. sounds like grou.ps might be a hosted site with all those features.
i am very curious. how many people and how long did it take using PLONE to get the EAST site where it is now? |
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Thanks Shane for the more detailed look at functionality. I think that's very important if we are to get beyond broad statements about platforms. We are devising the infrastructure for a new culture, so it is worth thinking hard and deeply about what we are doing.
But first, a recap of the overall position: Last year, when this project started, we thought in terms of one big platform replacing the current wiki and forum at transitiontowns.org, but as a result of earlier discussions in this group that view now seems unworkable, although some statements in this forum still seem to be addressing it.
Now it looks like there will be a growing number of regional websites, that can also host local initiatives, plus many local initiatives choosing to set up their own autonomous websites (but we hope to give them advice and support on whatever platform they choose to use for that), plus a central website for Transition Network. We have a pilot for a regional network, TransitionEast, a pilot of a platform to link the food projects and a pilot to support training.
As a start to a discussion of functionality, I prepared Gary's Software spec, posted on this site, which is the basis of the TranstitionEast regional pilot. I hoped people would comment on it in some detail, but that hasn't happened. The functionality I saw as needed, described in the document, is:
I think enhanced communication facilities are key in the short term as collaboration is the essence of Transition and needs better support than the usual maillists and forums. (I am building on many years experience in creating online communities at the Open University for this.) In the longer term, I see the exchange function as important as the Transition Movement matures, and wanted a platform on which that could be added.
So far as I can see, this spec goes well beyond what any existing hosted sites offer, (although some offer large chunks of it), which is why I chose an open source platform as its basis. TransitionEast is well advanced in implementing this spec, using Plone, because of its power in development. At the very least, it will serve as a test bed, and I would hope to see lots of other, and different platforms with overlapping functionality, so we can learn what best suits our emerging new culture.
Perhaps this perspective could clarify this discussion somewhat. What do people think of this? |
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upperholme. i have nothing against PHP. i am repeating what i heard from your UK VIPs. if you read critiques of Open Source, you find out that over the last few years it has not fulfilled all its promises and has problems too.
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@macrocosm - maps are definitely in the list for the Transition Network homesite, and your flow chart is excellent. Thanks.
Something along this lines has been mooted to provide some visualisation for the 'support and education' stream (with some more tech info), to give new initiatives an idea of the decisions they face re: web stuff. This also links in with @garyalex's regional support model (and related tech), and interviews I've had with new initative founders as well as survey analysis which shows that initiatives' tech needs change over time. Also in this area is the very likely recommendation to support regional 'tech surgeries' as seen in Birmingham (Paradise Circus)
@shanehughes yes I meant you; apologies.
For a more detailed view and background about what the web project is, and how it is broken down, have a look at the 'what is the web project' page in this group - should give a clearer idea of the functionality in more detail, and was intended to host the 'what is the web project' discussions. As you say, it's intended to be as simple as possible, with a view to the likelihood that what Transition needs will change over time, just as for the initiatives (and hence the need to keep it open and high enough level of development to be easily handed over and worked on by different people).
It is not neccesarily all in one (webhost/platform) space; some elements will be partnerships, some will be third party, some will be self-hosted. Hence the high level diagram's deliberate high-level-ness; an attempt to explain the core/periphery idea visually (and simply).
Your 1,2,3 is good stuff; it overlaps and complements the definition above lovely. Thanks.
Basecamp - following some looking at the survey and interviews, the pressing needs for initiatives are simple websites and mailing lists (they are mainly focused on immediate community networking) before project management stuff (which seems to be more desirable once initiatives are maturing), so it's likely that a recommendation for this project element would be basecamp (which has a free version), or central desktop etc... |
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Another excellent contribution from shanehughes - thanks for that. Most helpful. I will certainly look more closely at this approach.
@macrocosm: what's the problem with PHP? For me it is probably the preferred scripting platform given its huge user base and active development. Where is the evil? |
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no matter where i go in my thoughts regarding this, i think a portal network site should figure out how to generate a TN TT map like wiserearth has in order to move people out to their regions and communities swiftly - and networkign with their local groups.
could wiserearth just build us our own special TT TN mapping tool based on the one they have for their whole site?
and, of course, a portal support site should have all the basic educational stuff, not much unlike, for instance, the three groups i setup in t us ning site, and access to hopkins book online, etc
i am reminded as to how OS program support sites work, for instance, when i was running DRAGONFLY CMS. there was their main site, and one would always go to that site for the latest updates, ideas from other groups on setting up good sites, addons, etc. i mention this in order to demonstrate might, at least at first, start with a narrow simple support focus and build from there.
with some help from wiserearth, it could be all quite doable within WE, which was one of my original ideas, and it need not stop others from independently setting up their own sites, with some guidance from us regarding different hosting and program options. keep it simple stupid.
Here, this is for you ed, to add to your collection of flow charts. we should start collecting these.
http://envirochangemakers.org/images/TLAroadmap.jpg
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns