[Web4lib] Drupal and wikis

[Leo Robert Klein]

John Fereira wrote:

[snip]

> 
> That, as I see it, is one of the primary differences between Drupal (or 
> one of several other content management systems).  A wiki is primarily 
> about the collaborative creation of content, presenting a low barrier 
> such that anyone with access rights can quickly put something up that 
> can be shared and edited by others.  Most wikis pay little attention to 
> how that content is presented and may only provide a few options for 
> page layout, color schemes, institutional branding, etc.   A CMS is much 
> more conducive to being used for an departmental or institutional 
> primary web presence.
> 
> The other primarily difference found in a good CMS verses a wiki is 
> workflow.   For most wikis all content is edited and made available in 
> real time.  Most good CMSs have a facility for implementing several 
> roles such as "content authors",  "content approvers", and "content 
> publishers".   Before content might appear on a final production version 
> of the site it might go through several workflow steps before it is 
> available to the public.

First, thanks for the response.

Wikis are excellent for certain purposes -- and it looks like you have a 
few interesting examples.  Personally I couldn't do without them.

I just don't think they'd make much of a Library Website.

In the world of seamless mashups, engaging graphics and dynamic layouts, 
I think it'd be a disappointment to our users, if they got to our sites 
and found a drab list of links -- structurally not much different from 
the original attempts at web pages circa '93-'94.

That said, where I'd love to use them are in Intranets, also maybe for 
subject guides, etc.

It's kind of funny.  I also follow the LIBREF-L listserv and there 
someone recently wrote in asking if Blogs were going to replace 
websites.  Same dynamic.

LEO

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