We want a web expo for our humanities expo
April 2, 2011 12:48 PM Subscribe
Can we replicate the Chicago Humanities Festival website with Wordpress?
My department wants to have a website for our own annual humanities expo. We think that something like the CHF webpage would be a good fit for us.
It seems to me that you could do that with Wordpress in a relatively straightforward way. Am I wrong? If not Wordpress would Joomla, Drupal or some other CMS be up to the task? This ask.me suggests that, since this isn't really a blog, either Joomla or Drupal would be better. However, this ask.me suggests that it is unnecessary to use the other CMS's when Wordpress suffices. Thoughts?
Assume we'll have a competent coder to set it up and would like it to be updated by humanities professors.
Short version, previous ask.me questions and my own (very limited) experience suggest the Worpress would be fine. Is there a reason to think that it couldn't handle the elements/tasks of the CHF website?
My department wants to have a website for our own annual humanities expo. We think that something like the CHF webpage would be a good fit for us.
It seems to me that you could do that with Wordpress in a relatively straightforward way. Am I wrong? If not Wordpress would Joomla, Drupal or some other CMS be up to the task? This ask.me suggests that, since this isn't really a blog, either Joomla or Drupal would be better. However, this ask.me suggests that it is unnecessary to use the other CMS's when Wordpress suffices. Thoughts?
Assume we'll have a competent coder to set it up and would like it to be updated by humanities professors.
Short version, previous ask.me questions and my own (very limited) experience suggest the Worpress would be fine. Is there a reason to think that it couldn't handle the elements/tasks of the CHF website?
Response by poster: Rockstar, we will definitely have a sit down with IT and the coder during the planning stages. Also, thanks for the comment on PHP I hadn't thought to think in terms of the coder's skill set. We'll keep that in mind. That said, what are there specific skills for Joomla and Drupal?
posted by oddman at 1:46 PM on April 2, 2011
posted by oddman at 1:46 PM on April 2, 2011
I'd say Wordpress would very much be suited for this. It has grown way beyond blogs to where major sites are using it to manage content. Writing new articles on it is way more user-friendly than on the intimidating (but flexible) Drupal.
Drupal might work, too, but because of the small number of pages you're dealing with here, it could potentially be overkill. And also full of confusing concepts like "taxonomy."
posted by Victorvacendak at 2:22 PM on April 2, 2011
Drupal might work, too, but because of the small number of pages you're dealing with here, it could potentially be overkill. And also full of confusing concepts like "taxonomy."
posted by Victorvacendak at 2:22 PM on April 2, 2011
If you anticipate having not-so-tech-savvy writing articles in the system, I'd say definitely go with Wordpress. I think that Joomla and Drupal are much more complex in terms of managing content.
posted by rockstar at 3:30 PM on April 2, 2011
posted by rockstar at 3:30 PM on April 2, 2011
You could absolutely do that in Wordpress, the only reason to go with Joomla or Drupal would be if your coder had tons of experience with one of those. All three use PHP (I just Googled to check), so programming language itself should not be a barrier.
Your coder will have to be relatively experienced to get the backend set up to support all the different types of modules - probably some custom taxonomies and post types - so it won't be an off-the-shelf solution. But not too difficult, either.
posted by ella wren at 5:38 PM on April 2, 2011
Your coder will have to be relatively experienced to get the backend set up to support all the different types of modules - probably some custom taxonomies and post types - so it won't be an off-the-shelf solution. But not too difficult, either.
posted by ella wren at 5:38 PM on April 2, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
One caveat, though: University IT departments often have stringent guidelines for file permissions and database usage. This might give you some headaches down the line. If you're hosting on a university server, I would definitely email your hosting people and see if they have experience with/protocols in place for Wordpress sites.
posted by rockstar at 1:30 PM on April 2, 2011