Re: [libreoffice-website] [SC] Decision about CMS

Hi Benjamin,

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:05 PM, Benjamin Horst <bhorst@mac.com> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 2010, at 5:19 PM, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Benjamin Horst <bhorst@mac.com> wrote:
>
> We're working on this, but again, it's not a one-person decision here.

Yes, it's not. But those people who will make the decision should have
something to compare. I fully agree here.
But again: Who else but those who are advocating for a specific
platform, those who tell they have experience with the system are more
suited to setup a demo?
Especially if everybody is telling that you need to put quite some
time into configuring it until it fits all your needs?

> I don't think the onus is on everyone to prove to you personally that Drupal is best suited

No, not to me personally. Me included, but not exclusively to me. So
far only the ones that maintain a drupal site themselves are in favor
or drupal, the users didn't really had a chance to make up their mind
yet. (And those who were and tried out silverstripe, prefer
silverstripe over the current drupal demo)

> to the task; I think it's the reverse. If you're setting yourself up as the gatekeeper here,

Kind of, since I won't blindly follow whomever shouts loudest.
I'm active in the OOo community for the last ten years, so I consider
myself as experienced community member, I have been active in the
website project at OOo, am in the admin group taking care of the
servers.

But I'm surely not the only one who will make that decision. Again to
stress it: It is the content editors/native-lang people basically
who'll work with it, so it needs to be easy to use for /them/, not
nice for the admin.
If both is combined, the better, but if the UI for the user sucks,
then sorry, you're out of the game.

> then you need to be impartial and test both suggested platforms yourself.

Test: Yes, I fully agree.
Set it up myself and then having to face comments like you don't know
it, you should have done it otherwise, install module xy and
everythign works, etc.: No, thanks.

> If you're setting yourself up as an advocate of one platform, then you cannot also be the person 
> to make the final decision.

But I can always defend my personal opinion. And honestly: That what I
saw from the drupal demos doesn't kick it for me.

It just doesn't fit the usecase of the website. (And I take the
current OOo website as reference here, since I expect the organization
and use to be very, very similar)

> > > On Oct 18, 2010, at 10:42 AM, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Benjamin Horst <bhorst@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Silverstripe looks like a nice CMS, but not the best match for our requirements.

Then please point out what it lacks for our requirements, what
requirement you're talking about here.

> For a large site supporting dynamic activities

What do you mean with dynamic activities?

> [...] since you are already biased toward one particular system and have not spent your time 
> evenly evaluating the proposed alternative.

Well, I'n not getting tired to write that I'll happily evaluate it,
but that I'm not setting it up myself.
I laid out the reasons for this multiple times.

> Turning your above statement around--just because you built a pretty demo in Silverstripe,
> does not mean that it will scale (in terms of functionality) to address the full site needs of
> LibreOffice. This is my single largest concern--if we start with Silverstripe, we may grow into
> its limitations pretty quickly. Then we have the unpleasant choice of replacing our CMS or
> just living uncomfortably with it. Inertia may well lead us to choose the second option, which
> could cripple our project in many small ways.

Well, I don't see a problem with that. Once because I don't think that
Silverstripe doesn't scale for the intended usage, and secondly: Even
if it does, I see no problem in admitting the failure and to switch to
another CMS.

> [...]
> As a community, many of us are saying to you: "Drupal is a very powerful CMS that will fit
> our needs."

Yes, despite that, that group of many people didn't manage to create a
demo that fit those.

> We're not total strangers, and therefore our suggestion should carry much more weight
> than a demo that was put together by someone none of us knows.

That is exactly my argumentation why I'm not suitable to setup a
drupal demo. No matter how much effort I'll put in, there *will* be
someone who will complain afterwards: You could have done it better
/that/ way. And I don't feel like that.

I don't get why you ignore this aspect again and again and always
claim that I'm not willing to evaluate it/not willing to consider it.

> [...]
> This conversation has been challenging, but I think it is important to start the LibreOffice
> website on the best possible platform.

As indicated otherwise: It is important to /start/.
Even it it is not the best possible platform on earth. What counts is
that it works.

ciao
Christian

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