Re: Short list starting point - a faceted directory is what we need.

Hi Brian,

As editor of the DMOZ ODP, I have been wrestling with the problem of 
short listings, and well-categorized listings, for over a year.

At CMS Review (http://www.cmsreview.com) we cover proprietary [1] and 
open-source [2] products, application development frameworks, finished 
out-of-the-box solutions, and hosted services [3] at application service 
providers.

We also list "CMS-Lite" products like News Portals [4], Weblogs [5] 
Aggregators [6], and Wikis [7], as well as WYSIWYG Editors [8] for a CMS.

You can compare two CMS "head-to-head" in our Feature Comparator (if 
they are part of the growing CMSML database at http://www.cmsml.org).

Our home page has links to lists of lists, like CluefulConsulting [9], 
James Robertson's StepTwo [10], Erik Hartman[11], and others.

And our new CMS Glossary effort [12] has a list of nearly 550 technical 
terms for Content Management, of which over 170 now have definitions. 
You can see only the defined terms in a drop-down menu at 
http://www.cmsglossary.com

Our CMSML initiative [13] is always looking for help on how to 
categorize and describe CMS.  Its most important outputs are an 
annotated list of key features [14] and a faceted directory of CMS 
[15].  Notes below...

[1] http://www.cmsreview.com/Proprietary/
[2] http://www.cmsreview.com/OpenSource/
[3] http://www.cmsreview.com/ASP/
[4] http://www.cmsreview.com/NewsPortals/
[5] http://www.cmsreview.com/Weblogs/
[6] http://www.cmsreview.com/Weblogs/AggregatorDirectory.html
[7] http://www.cmsreview.com/Wikis/
[8] http://www.cmsreview.com/WYSIWYG/
[9] 
http://www.clueful.com.au/cgi-bin/cmsdirectory/browse/Products%3aCommercial%20systems
[10] http://www.steptwo.com.au/cm/vendors/australian/index.html
[11] http://www.hartman-communicatie.nl/extra/tools.htm
[12] http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=CmsGlossary
[13] http://www.cmsml.org
[14] http://www.cmsreview.com/features/lists.html
[15] http://www.cmsreview.com/Directory.html
____________________________________________________________

What's a faceted directory?

Consider the classic website directory architecture the DMOZ Open 
Directory Project, a portal to over 4 million websites. Like library 
books on their proper shelf, each website has one and only one place in 
the directory. To find one, you must drill down the master taxonomy or 
hierarchy. For example, content management web sites on the ODP are 
found in Computers: Software: Internet: Site Management: Content 
Management. Subdirectories arrange CMS products into open-source, XML, 
various programming languages, like Java, Perl, and PHP. And they list 
hosted systems at application service providers in a separate category. 
What if you are looking for an open-source content management system 
written in PHP, based on XML and hosted at an ASP? What do you do? You 
do it their way and look in four different places.

[I have been lobbying other DMOZ editors to relax the one-listing policy 
and allow us to put a CM website in all its relevant categories.  They 
regard this as too much work for editors.  My response has been that if 
I am willing to do it for the Content Management categories, can I be 
permitted to do it.  No resolution yet.]

A faceted directory lets you home in quickly on CMSs that fit your 
requirements. What are facets and how do they work? As you probably 
guessed, they are attributes, characteristics, or features of something 
that can be named, and then used to group things. Our four sample facets 
from the Open Directory Project are license (open-source or 
proprietary), hosted, markup language, and programming language. But 
there are many more technology facets not included in the ODP, like 
operating system, web server, and database, and functionality facets 
like workflow, access control, versioning, WYSIWYG editing, etc.

With a faceted directory structure you can isolate the facets and decide 
which of them is most important to you. A faceted directory rearranges 
itself and puts your priorities on top. If your IT shop insists on a 
certain OS platform, or programming language, you can make one of these 
your top facet. You can continue to drill down into less important 
features, but at any time you can see how many systems are available 
that fit your criteria to that point. When the number is reasonable, 
it's time to inspect the products more closely.

The CMSML project aims to identify dozens of features of CMS that can be 
identified to serve as facets, then to create XML descriptions of CMSs. 
CMS vendors are invited to join a working group to identify these key 
features. A faceted directory of CMS will help decision makers in their 
selection process. A draft version is running at CMSReview.com. A 
Feature Comparator provides head-to-head comparisons of major CM 
systems. These comparisons are syndicated to CM-related websites around 
the world.



Brian J. Hoffman wrote:

> All,
>
> We are getting ready to create our short list of products for a Web 
> CMS and are looking for a reasonable starting point. At one end of the 
> spectrum, if we go to the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org) 
> and look at the Content Management category, we get just shy of 800 
> listings. We can probably eliminate a great deal of those on some 
> initial criteria, but who has the time to go through all of them? At 
> the other end, CMSWatch (http://www.cmswatch.com) has a nice, concise 
> list of 40 products. But if your needs easily fit you into one or two 
> of the product categories, then you only have five to ten or so.
>
> Is there a list somewhere in between these two that we could use as a 
> starting point with perhaps double or so the number of products that 
> CMSWatch has?
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Brian J. Hoffman
>
> Database Administrator/Webmaster
> Penn State University Libraries
> 814-863-3214
>
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