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Which Weblogs Are Best Suited for User Group Use?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I'm preparing a proposal to my local LUG hopefully to persuade them to incorporate a weblog into their current website. It seems to me that weblogs would be better suited to the type of communication that is generally found on LUG email lists. My questions is: Are there any LUGs out there that are currently using some type of weblog application? Are there any who are considering it, or have considered it and abandoned the idea? What are the major reasons behind your choice?"
Scoop is probably the best solution for your needs. Anyone can add articles, the group votes the best ones to the front, and admins can vote announcements/time critical stories to the front page.
At the Saskatoon Linux Users' Group, we use the WikiWeb. Wiki allows all members to annotate and update the pages, rather than requiring a central authority to filter all changes in. A plus is that everyone can contribute equally.
Also, it supports versioning, so it's handy for many other group oriented activities that involve planning.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I've used Geeklog for three groups sites .. one of them with a tech focus, one is an SCA site, one for a non-profit organisation. Like 90% of blogs out there, it's fairly stable, has nice templates, yadda yadda yadda. It has built in calendaring which is nice also. I'd recommend it ... the number of security issues behind it are pretty much zilch.
Postnuke is pretty amazing, but IMNSHO it's becoming very large. Takes a bit to get it customised to the level you want.
Robert Anton Wilson
At the Yorktown Linux Users' Group, they use the Python Wiki. Wikis are better than weblogs because they promote freshness of data, corrections, and everyone getting involved.
My favorite heavy duty Wikis are:
Linux: TWiki (http://www.twiki.org/)
Windows: OpenWiki (http://www.openwiki.com/)
Each of these wikis support heavy duty revisions, diffs, uploading, access controls (only if you want them), and are Open-Source!
If you like the way this site works, you can get the code here.
I would suggest that you use Wiki (we use wiki for a similar purpose) or use a simple Weblog like b2 cafelog.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Geeklog is a Slashlike engine written in PHP which runs just fine on IIS. Going to support bluetooth too real soon now.
Drupal seems to have all the features of Slash and Scoop plus more. And you only need PHP & MySQL support, so it will run even on a Windoze box.
(This is like a throwback to the user-group days of old when we actually used green-screen BBS's on 2400 bps modems... but sometimes the oldies are goodies.)
XDG
I use Mark Kyne's "Personal Weblog" for a small site that allows anyone to read anything, and those who have the password to post and edit posts. Ultra simple. I think it works just fine for announcements and stuff. Its php and mysql. Mine really isn't used much at all, but it works fine. Get it atp .
http://www.kyne.com.au/~mark/software/weblog.ph
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
They're just about to release Plone 1.0 which is basically a pre-configured Zope with CMF and some of the other new plugins all set up. Their web site is basically their product as it comes up when you first install it, so it gives you a good idea what it looks like.
It's big if all you need is a weblog, but it's perfect if you want a platform that you can build on and add applications to while maintaining a lot of flexibility (user management, etc)
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Depeneds on the group. Is this group being everyone? or a select few? I use moveable type it can use a berkley dbfile or MySQL you can have it run mulitble blogs all with mulitple users with diffrent levels power. Easy to administrate can be slightly tricky to install.
Having set it up on a large-ish site recently, I'd have to say that Tiki is simply awesome! Weblogs, forums, file and image galleries, FAQ system, on and on and on, with a really cool user management system. http://tikiwiki.sf.net/ has everything you need.
...at pmachine. neat, easy to install, easy to use, well documented and works nicely.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
If you prefer java to php/perl there is Roller, made with open source java stuff (mostly jakarta). It has become quite popular in the java community.
I suggest Twiki. This is a pretty rich set of functions and plug-ins that make it a top notch option.
If it is a little too much, try another wiki as suggested here. The benefits are they can be used in various different fashions, from bulletin boards to help desk info.
SCOOP is also very good, but so would Slashcode if that is the type of setup you are looking for. In the case of a LUG, I would suggest you look at broader option and Wikis are there.
I know, I help run Kuro5hin :)
For what the LUG needs, 10 minutes of a Wiki setup is way better than 20-40 minutes on a Perl/Apache/MySQL/Scoop setup which requires more maintenance.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I know that was the biggest thing missing from it before, phorums are great but if you cant exchange files as well it hinders its total useablity..
---- Booth was a patriot ----