Re: Issue #2 - Allow contributions to website from browser

On 2016-08-14 16:25, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:05:22AM -0400, Filipus Klutiero wrote:
>> The way one can contribute to SPI's website is explained on
>> http://www.spi-inc.org/ :
>>
>>> This website is managed using ikiwiki+git. You can view the revision
>>> history via gitweb <http://git.spi-inc.org/gitweb/?p=website.git> and
>>> send any updates, either as a git pull request or a patch, to
>>> webmaster(at)spi-inc(dot)org <mailto:webmaster(at)spi-inc(dot)org>.
>> Contributions would be much more appealing if there was a more
>> intuitive way to modify, in particular for casual contributors. The
>> web interface provided by a wiki or web content management system
>> would provide such an appeal. This is a wide request which does not
>> demand any particular wiki or CMS. Such a system could replace the
>> current website or supplement it, consisting only of new pages.
> Contributions to the SPI website went up significantly by moving from
> Plone to ikiwiki, and the website became much more current.

Many thanks Jonathan; I had forgotten SPI previously used Plone. The Wayback machine shows that we switched from Plone to Ikiwiki in Q4 2010, but a quick search on Google did not find an analysis of that change, either anterior or posterior.

> Empirical
> evidence thus suggests we're much better off where we currently are.

I don't remember ever contributing to a Plone website. I have no idea why the switch was made and whether it was beneficial, but I did not mean at all to suggest reverting it.

> Based on experience managing a number of wikis I think the workload
> involved in helping people who want to contribute at present but can't
> deal with ikiwiki is significantly lower than dealing with an open (or
> even approval based) wiki or CMS.

I am not sure what you meant exactly by "deal", but recruitment of contributors unable to *use* the current system is not the main benefit I see. I was rather seeing a switch as a way to make contributing more appealing.

As for the workload involved in dealing with wikis or CMS-s, were you referring to content administration?

--
Filipus Klutiero
http://www.philippecloutier.com