Re: RE: cms list mission

Ian Bicking <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.cms.cms-forum.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
chris wrote:
> Well, if it's any consolation, product features do not bear a passing
> resemblance to interesting technical conversation either. But if a
> usage-centered design process is being implemented in a cms project, I
> should think that the process and socio-political aspects of content
> management aspect certainly (should) have bearing on the technical
> implementation of things.  In the end, content management systems are a
> technical solution and business rules, social assumptions, and political
> expectations are enforced in the application design - and sometimes the cms
> fails because they are not enforced (or even articulated). 

While all aspects of a CMS implementation are important to both editors 
and developers, that doesn't change the fact that product 
recommendations are boring.  That's why there's consultants to help 
people make the choice -- people are best at doing boring things when 
they are paid for it.  Or, if they don't pay a consultant, there are 
many people in sales willing to help them make their decision.  Whether 
you pay for it or the vendor pays for it, you shouldn't expect someone 
to analyze your specific case for free.

To be interesting, the discussion has to be more general than 
what-should-I-choose.  Talking about how to make choices is a good 
topic.  Talking about risks and rewards is interesting.  Trying to eke 
out the requirements that one particular person has, then suggesting 
areas of research for that person isn't very interesting.

That said, as a CMS developer I'm definitely interested to hear editors' 
successes and failures, their points of frustration and their wishes. 
I'm interested in hearing stories of CMS implementation failure or 
success.  I'm interested in what administrators want and what they 
dislike.  As a parallel, I wouldn't be interested in discussion of, say, 
an administrator's specific installation problem -- someone gets paid to 
answer that (boring) question.

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  [email protected]  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org
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