[Web4lib] Drupal and wikis

[Chris Gray]

Wikis were originally designed to allow people to edit or add to a Web 
site using simple plain text directly through their browser. It provides 
some automatic full text indexing and fairly automatic managing of 
links. Access is through following links or full text search. The 
organization is basically hyper-textual or web-like and not hierarchical 
with a navigation scheme. The Wiki look is basic html without many of 
the visual features we now associate with the Web. Forms and tables are 
not supported. Although images can usually be included the emphasis is 
on text.

A content management system comes historically from corporate document 
management systems. The main features are a central repository for 
documents and other content and mechanisms for reusing and re-purposing 
that content in multiple ways, allowing the same document to be 
published as a Web page or a printable PDF or to allow bits and pieces 
of content to be assembled in multiple ways. Content within the 
repository is tracked by a work flow mechanism so that the creation and 
editing of documents can be routed to people with different roles 
(authors, editors, legal staff) before it is made publicly available.

Generally speaking a Wiki is designed to be more relaxed and free 
flowing while a CMS is a more disciplined affair. A Wiki is designed to 
grow a community dynamically. A CMS is designed to serve a pre-existing 
institution.

That said, the two are gradually overlapping more and more. Many people 
find a basic Wiki is too simple both in capability and many forms of 
Wiki software have had a considerable number of features added on to 
them to the point of approaching the capabilities of a content 
management system.

On the other side, as the Web has risen in importance and Web sites have 
grown to sizes difficult to manage, content management systems have 
arisen that concentrate on publishing to the Web. The re-purposing and 
transformation of content allows Web pages to be built from stored 
content and presented via style sheets. This in turn means authors do 
not have to know html to contribute a document. Many content management 
systems today are incorporating Wikis and Blogs as things that can be 
managed withing the CMS.

Chris Gray
Library Systems
University of Waterloo

Carol McGeehon wrote:
> I'm interested in the differences between a content management system
> such as Drupal and a wiki.  I've been asked the question since we are
> looking at using Drupal for our library web site.  What are the
> strengths of using Drupal instead of a wiki to develop a library
> website?  What are the strengths of using a wiki instead of a content
> management system to develop a library website?
>  
> So far, I've been unable to find any information with compares and
> contrasts these two types of software.
>  
> Carol McGeehon
> Technical Support Manager
> Douglas County Library System
> 1409 NE Diamond Lake Blvd
> Roseburg, OR   97470
> 541-440-6005
>  
> When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
>  
>  
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