Abstract submitted for Computers and Writing Online 2005
Co-authored by Charles Lowe and Dries Buytaert
In the summer of 2003, we worked on creating a general description of Drupal--an open source content management system (CMS)--for the About page on drupal.org. While Drupal is clearly within the class of applications know as content management systems, we felt that to describe it with that term alone would not present a clear picture of the breadth and range of Drupal's capabilities. Thus, the final description ended up describing Drupal with a total of four characteristics, although notably not distinct:
- content management
- weblog
- discussion-based community software
- collaboration
Why is it then that the term CMS alone would not suffice? The word "content" places much emphasis on the product over process; it fails to emphasize the social use of CMS's, a mislabeling which places too much emphasis on the content itself at the expense of the communication and collaboration the better of these systems implement. The databases that back most CMS's often do much more than just store documents; for example, they preserve and connect conversations internally (commenting), connect Internet sites externally (RSS, aggregation, trackback), manage users (user accounts), and store lists of links to other pertinent websites (blogrolls). In order to better understand how CMS's are being influenced by the precepts of social software and their role in creating social networks online, this presentation will
- explore Drupal's social software features,
- narrate its genesis as software serving a community
- explain the influence of the community itself on Drupal development and the software's influence on the community that creates and uses it.
The presentation is the text of a work in progress, a chapter in preparation for an edited collection. In composing this text, we draw on the coauthors' unique perspectives. One of us is the founder and lead developer of Drupal, and the other a researcher in Computers and Writing and a participant in the Drupal community.
Responders
Marina Meza is responding to this post.
Lennie Irvin San Antonio Col
Lennie Irvin
San Antonio College
This looks like an interesting proposal in terms of using this tool (Drupal). I know Charlie had been championing Drupal for years, and Kairos News is a testiment to its social value. I would personally like to learn more about using Drupal in a classroom setting to facilitate collaboration and learning. I am particularly interested in hearing about how to make this tool easily available to teachers (like me). I am interested in viewing Drupal as an asynchronous tool and its relative value versus synchronous tools like MOO.
LI
thanks, Lennie
The article will discuss some of Drupal's capabilities, but perhpas not in as much detail as you might be looking for. I think the analogy would be an article looking at how EncoreMoo works as a syncrhonous environment, how it is developed, and how it is used as a sychronous environment in it's development to support the community of developers and users.
CW palo alto workshop
Drupal as community?
Charlie, I'm looking forward to this presentation, since Drupal is still, by and large, on my "to learn" list. One thing that struck me as I looked at your abstract was the way that your third point:
was something that was much more characteristic of Drupal than it is of most other systems (I won't use "CMS"...), and more so than most of the features that you list before the three points. I'm circling around the question of whether it's actually useful to speak of Drupal as technology apart from Drupal as community. I don't really know one way or the other, and ultimately, it may be something beyond the scope of your presentation, or beyond the scope of an About page at the very least...but that's the question that this abstract raises for me. It reminds me of Nardi and O'Day's information ecology stuff in that regard...
cgb
"I'm circling around the ques
"I'm circling around the question of whether it's actually useful to speak of Drupal as technology apart from Drupal as community."
Actually, I think that is where we are headed with what we have written. I probably could have expressed that better in the abstract, although I had already gone way over the word limit.
LOL
and thanks for information ecologies
From what I can see of the sample chapters on First Monday, looks like it might be very useful. I doubt I'll be able to get a full copy in time for the presentation, but I'll definitely work with this for the final version.
Thanks!
Loved learning about Drupal!
Hey, tip of the hat to the presenters! I knew a very little about Drupal before reading this informative web, which I sure hope makes it into C & C -- lots of people want and need to know. I kept thinking that the name Drupal has to be related to drupe (a fruit type) and drupelet, the little globes that make up blackberries and raspberries, and so it is; the connection to the Dutch word for drop expresses that perfectly. I like the metaphoric connection of packets of info to drops in the plumbing of the net. And so cool that you guys are bringing Howard Rheingold back into the conversation. Like Rheingold, I am particularly interested in the rise and fall and dynamics of online/virtual community, and what happens when things get too big; do they die, like MediaMOO or can they morph gracefully? I need to go back and reread that Rheingold book, and seriously think about whether NIU should get more involved in Drupal...
Thanks guys; being new to this sort of interface, I am not sure I posted my comment on your presentation in the right place, but maybe you'll tell me how to move it if it's in the wrong place?
Michael
media MOO
I wish I knew more what happened with MediaMOO. In light of what Dries and I wrote about, I'd be curious to know whether or not MediaMoo developed their own MOO application? Was the application part of the problem? In the case of Drupal, because drupal.org is (probably? Dries would know) the largest Drupal community, technological solutions that facilitate the growth of the community are continually implemented and then trickle down to other Drupal communities. I'm not suggesting that technology can solve all the problems of community growth; merely that in Drupal's case, some solutions are being created which assist with that growth.
MediaMOO used Pavel Curtis' e
MediaMOO used Pavel Curtis' existing lambda core, but the folks at the Media Lab at MIT had a lot of fun designing an architecture for it. Amy Bruckman was largely responsible for some of the unique features of MediaMOO. In the early days, you had to be a media researcher of some kind (technorhetoricians qualified, which is why the Tuesday Cafe was started there). And unlike other MUDS and MOOs in that age (early 90s) you could not be anonymous. Others had to be able to find out your real name and email address. The theory was that if you were a researcher, not someone out there gaming, this would be fine and encourage responsibility.
No, the application wasn't the problem, it was a schizm about anonymity and the governing council's right to make requirements of members that other MOOs didn't. It would be interesting to try to think of a way in which a technological development might have helped to solve the problem by allowing both groups (those who wanted anonymity and more freedom and those who wanted real names and more control) to get a bit of what they wanted. As it was, though, the group that wanted anonymity led a mass exodus and tried to trash MediaMOO's reputation in the MUD/MOO world. This coincided with many people just losing their interest in these virtual communities, and Mediamoo slowly became the ghost town MOOseum that it now is.
a fork
Ahhh..a community fork. When open source communities talk about forks, it's generally in a negative way, even though I've seen a few where it resulted in improved development. Certainly important in open communities because it's the possiblity of a fork which can push leaders of a community to make sure that community goals represent a compromise that the majortiy can live with. Sometimes, I think that compromise is not reached and a fork occurs because of bad management or poor diplomatic abilities of the major competing interests. But sometimes it has to happen as part of the growth of a community, in order to evolve. Case in point (it might have been Linus who said this), an open source project may become too big, the application too large, and in need of an overhaul. But because so many people are invested in continuing the main development, the new revision will appear from a fork. An example of this would be Mozilla vs Mozilla Firefox.
forks and focus
Bradley