Post on 27-Nov-2014
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WordPress for Government Websites?!
Jase Wilson, LuminopolisPresented at WordCamp KC 2011
Jase Wilson
What’s this about?A. Managing local gov websites
B. Time & money
Gov. Websites?Towns
Counties
Small Cities
Neighborhoods
Special Area / Project Sites
So what’s the problem?
Govs. in need of web services
More info needs to be managed
Citizens need accessible info
Dwindling budgets
What CMS options do
small governments have for
managing their websites?
What options to small govs have for their sites?
No CMSHand code all content
Can be useful for very small, simple sites
Impractical @ 10+ pages
What options to small govs have for their sites?
One-off CMS“roll your own”
Custom CRUD (& possibly GUI)
Made in-house or by contractor
Useful in very unique situations
Unwise for most: abundant simpler options
What options to small govs have for their sites?
Language Framework CMSSimilar to one-off
Begins with a broadly distributed skeleton system (Rails, Django, CakePHP, etc. etc.)
Good choice for enormous entities / complex sites
Impractical for all but largest gov. organizations
What options to small govs have for their sites?
Proprietary / Vendor CMSAlready built, ready to tailor
(Ektron, CivicPlus, etc.)
Purchased or SaaS
Can be extremely costly
Sometimes slow innovation pace
High risk of vendor lock-in
What options to small govs have for their sites?
Open Source CMSAlready built, ready to tailor
(Drupal, WordPress, etc.)
Core is usually free
Extensible (large communities of contributors)
Increasingly wise choice for small & mid gov. orgs
Of the people, by the people, for the people
Drupalde facto OS CMS for federal government(whitehouse.gov, SBA, many others)
extremely competentpowerful when used correctly
Open Source CMS choices for government
WordPress?Started as blogging system
As of 3.1 (Feb 23, 2011): CMS
Open Source CMS choices for government
There are other options...
JoomlaTextpattern
CushySilverstripe
Frogetc., etc...
Open Source CMS choices for government
Open Source CMS choices for government
vs.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294There’s been some talk lately...
http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294There’s been some talk lately...
There’s been some talk lately...http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294
http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294There’s been a lot of talk lately...
http://groups.drupal.org/node/136294There’s been a lot of talk lately...
By the numbers: market share - 07 April 2011
By the numbers: market share - 11 June 2011
By the numbers: registered hooks*
*hook = function endpoint for integrating extensions
WordPress exposed hooks from v 1.2.1 to v 3.1:
Drupal 7: 267 WordPress 3.1:1469http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hookshttp://bit.ly/dIPaBFg
Graph Source: http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks
By the numbers: installations
Graph Source: Jen Lampton, “Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note” (July, 2010)
http://slidesha.re/917HF0
(excludes WP.com)
By the numbers: registered extensions
Graph Source: Jen Lampton, “Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note” (July, 2010)
http://slidesha.re/917HF0
By the numbers: registered themes
Graph Source: Jen Lampton, “Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note” (July, 2010)
http://slidesha.re/917HF0
By the numbers: community size
Graph Source: Jen Lampton, “Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note” (July, 2010)
http://slidesha.re/917HF0
# of people in the community
Still a kitten?
More != BetterBut there are some advantages to scale:
More members = more knowledge & support
More users = easier to hire maintainer
More hooks = greater flexibility (in the long run)
More eyes = tighter security (in the long run)
It’s true:
Post Editor - WP 0.7.1 (2003)
From humble beginnings...
Dashboard - WP 3.2 (2011)
WordPress continues to evolve...
Does WP scale?
Is WP powerful?
Is WP flexible?http://broadbandmap.gov
http://d.pr/NZec
Is WP flexible?
“The structure of the WordPress API allows us to develop much faster than
any other CMS we’ve tried.” —Ivan Djordjevic, National Broadband Map
http://broadbandmap.govhttp://d.pr/NZec
Is WP flexible?
"They chose WordPress to power this colossal project for several reasons: they
wanted a platform that could support +25 million data records without
sacrificing performance and scalability..."
- Paul Maiorana, WordPress Publisher Blog
http://broadbandmap.govhttp://d.pr/NZec
If WordPress can power these incredible
projects, it can and should be adapted
to the needs of local governments.
We can do this.
Want to be notified? http://civicms.com
coming soon
1. Simpler setup & maintenance = less $
2. Big community = more managers in labor pool
3. Less moving parts = less things that can go wrong
4. Intuitive workflow = increased productivity
5. Tons of hooks = integration with other services
So, Why WP?
So, Why WP?
6. It was built for communities!!!
- powerful threaded commenting engine in core
- multiuser, multisite out of the box
- user levels, from superadmin to subscriber
- forks & plugins for forums(bbPress, buddyPress, p2, etc.)
Thank You? & !
jase@luminopolis.com
@luminopolis
jasewilson