Yo, Drupal, what’s up with you!

6 Responses to “Yo, Drupal, what’s up with you!”

• D'Arcy Norman

  July 14, 2007 at 10:36 am

  yo, rev. it really doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game… we use Drupal “officially” but I just recommended a prof send his 1400 students to WordPress.com to mimic the opencontentdiy stuff (oh – that reminds me…)

  funny clip, though. The Rev. as a pimp daddy…
• jimgroom

  July 14, 2007 at 10:40 am

  Now D’Arcy, you know I’m just having fun. The real motivation here is that I haven’t gotten a comment from you in a while, and I knew this baited epistle (maybe even a love letter?) would inspire you.

  P.S. -A while in this case being two days or so
• jimgroom

  July 14, 2007 at 10:57 am

  D’Arcy,

  But more to the point, 1400 students!!! that is just about half the population at UMW. Now I know the myriad reasons why you won;t like the suggestion I’m about to give, namely:

  Hosting all these blogs
  • Managing 1400 students work
  • Creating labor where their may not be any need for it
  • Breaking with the SMPLJ montra, which is a very good one

  That being duly acknowledged, would you, and by extension UCalgary, consider creating WPMu install and trying to host these blogs. Why? Well, I know the business we are in is not hosting, but I wonder if having these blogs on one install might present some really interesting possibilities for playing with feeds, aggregation, tagging, etc. I know there are other ways to skin this cat, but I would really like to see a way to have students add feeds to a drop-down menu of classes in WPMU and then have the install itself aggregate these out to sections, classes, etc, yet still allow for some interesting cross-pollination of posts. Having a designated install may allow for some interesting experiments, it may not, and it may be a lot more hassle then it is worth, but then again -who’s better than you, D’Arcy. I mean, I had said it at NV, nd I’ll return to it here, couldn’t we find a way to wrap Drupal around a WPMu install for self-service entry of feed URLs, and more sophisticated create of OPML files, feed categories, etc.?

  Regardless, we have some work to do with wordpress.com, and this is an amazing reason to start, 1400, huh, wow -you’re my hero, as usual.
• Alan

  July 14, 2007 at 3:22 pm

  Yo, Da Rev ees one badasss pimp! Who is da b**** ‘drupal’?
• Bill Fitzgerald

  July 14, 2007 at 5:12 pm

  Greetings, Mr. Groom,

  First off, I’m totally digging the fashion sense.

  Second off, while I tried not to rise to the bait, I am too weak to resist.

  RE: “I know there are other ways to skin this cat, but I would really like to see a way to have students add feeds to a drop-down menu of classes in WPMU and then have the install itself aggregate these out to sections, classes, etc, yet still allow for some interesting cross-pollination of posts.”

  I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that I know what you’re talking about, which is a dangerous proposition in the best of times, but I’m going to make an equally dangerous supposition when I assume that you, indeed, also know what you are talking about.

  With that out of the way, RE: aggregate these out to sections, classes, etc —

  One word: DrupalEd. Works that way out of the box, and includes (by design) the cross-pollination between courses, groups, and students. Includes group-specific tags and sitewide tags. Comes with rss feeds out the wazoo (although I don’t recommend you put your feedreader there). Unlike WordPress, however, Drupal has lacked the excitement of major security holes for most of 2007 (sorry, I couldn’t resist — the pimpin’ video drove me to it).

  All kidding aside, WPMU is a solid app, but Drupal puts a broader array of tools at your disposal.

  Cheers,

  Bill
• jimgroom

  July 14, 2007 at 8:46 pm

  @Alan -Lovin’ the Gizmoz, thanks.

  @Bill

  Along with D’Arcy, you’re the other Drupaler I missed most. And our previous conversations had led to a lot of great posts on a number of other sites, so whenever you chime in here I feel honored and excited. Additionally, presuming what I mean is as dangerous as predicting the weather, so your disclaimer is not only appreciated but necessary. This is a “b” blog, ya know