The whole syndication-oriented architecture (feed-frenzied learning) many have been playing with using WordPress Multi-User has been moving along pretty well for us at UMW. With the help of just a couple of plugins we have been able to generate a single feed for tags and/or categories throughout UMW Blogs (using the Sitewide Tags Pages plugin for WPMu), and we are then able to republish these sitewide feeds in any blog using FeedWordPress. Moreover, it provides us with the ability to incorporate and re-publish sites with RSS feeds that are outside the UMW Blogs environment. All very cool, EDUGLU here we come, yadda, yadda, yadda.
My wish now is to do something similar with FeedWordPress to what Andre Malan already has done for BDPRSS. Namely, create a widget extension for the FeedWordPress plugin that will allow you to have an “Add RSS” widget which provides a field on the front page of any blog so that people can add their feed (for the whole blog or a tag or category), and have the relevant posts republished. I like the fact that Andre’s extension of the BDPRSS plugin gives you levels of control over who can add the feed, and that would be a nice feature to include. Moreover, I would add sending the admin of the blog an email message to let them know someone has added a feed so that they can check it out and make sure it was added correctly and is parsing.
So, anyone else see the need for something like this? Additionally can we you build it?!
Bring it on. Who’s got their hackers on? Who’s ready to cross the streams?
Many thanks for all of the WP goodness you’ve posted about here. I’ve begun to go back through everything to see what other cool stuff UMW blogs has been up to.
Along those lines, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the blogging culture at UMW. I can’t recall if you spoke about this during your presentation last week or not. Did you and others work to cultivate a blogging culture when setting everything up - openness, discussion, creativity, exploration, etc - or was it a matter of stepping back and letting people discover their own views of blogging?
By this I don’t mean issuing edicts - such as “Thou shalt blog daily.” - but more by modeling, encouraging the questioning of standing preconceptions, etc.
To a large degree I think that no one can really tell you what your blogging voice will be, nor how you should use the platform - but I’m also wondering whether misconceptions exist about what blogging is or is not that benefit from discussion? Then again, perhaps the discussion evolves organically (as it does on the open web).
These questions are all floating around in my head since we’re starting to think about setting up a WPMU instance at UNSW. I’m quite used to blogs, but most people here aren’t - so a lot of basic questions are arising at this point.
So I’d be interested in hearing about your experiences.
Cheers,
Mike
“The UMW Blogs Story”
Cheers,
Mike
Your search powers are so jedi-like that I didn’t have a chance to answer quick enough. And, indeed, that would’ve been the post I referred you to. In addition to that, I’ll also recommend checking out Gardner Campbell’s “The Reverend Asked me a Question” post, which I think is the best discussion of course blogging I have read to date. Gardner was the impetus behind the blogging “explosion” at UMW, and the stuff he does with blogging in his course—the expectations, the ability to interconnect so many loose threads, and his talent for getting students and others to believe in it can not be emphasized enough—his work with blogging is quite impressive.
You are so sick! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m trying it out now.
Just tried out your plugin and it works like a charm, one thing is that the installation instructions were not entirely commented out, so it throws an error until you comments them out.
Fantastic work, I love the password feature too, it is the whole package, you rule the edupunk school! next time I am up in Vancouver, drinks are on me all night
I’ve fixed the installation instructions on the live version (It just goes to show that no matter how small a change you make, one should always test again before sending things out).
Can’t wait to see what you do with the plugin.
Consider Vince on that tab as well, thank you both, I can’t laud the work you are doing over there as often and as loud as it needs to be. Great stuff!