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opencompany / www.opencompany.org

Website of the Open Company Initiative
https://www.opencompany.org
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migrate to WordPress #31

Closed chadwhitacre closed 10 years ago

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Reticketed from #24. WordPress is the de facto standard for content publishing (and surely Automattic is some kinda open company!). Basically, if we want editors who are journalists instead of geeks we should use WordPress.

I guess we just use WordPress.com?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Do we still have a theme that's open source here?

Dispatches commented 10 years ago

I would say so. There are plenty of them http://spyrestudios.com/33-new-open-source-wordpress-themes-for-2013/

Dispatches commented 10 years ago

You'll probably also need a source for stock images? I've used Dreamstime.com - but there's a free stock repository at http://www.flickr.com/groups/stock/ (tied to Yahoo)

joelmccracken commented 10 years ago

Have you evaluated prose.io? It may be an easier way to do what you want.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 27, 2013, at 3:46 PM, Chad Whitacre notifications@github.com wrote:

Reticketed from #24. WordPress is the de facto standard for content publishing (and surely Automattic is some kinda open company!). Basically, if we want editors who are journalists instead of geeks we should use WordPress.

I guess we just use WordPress.com?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

Dispatches commented 10 years ago

It might be a better option than googledocs for editing? Don't know if it can replace WordPress.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@joelmccracken Prose.io is neat, thanks for the tip. :-) As discussed on our call, though, I think we want to use a platform that feels native to someone coming from a journalism background, to encourage participation from journalists. That basically means WordPress.

timothyfcook commented 10 years ago

are you talking about migrating the entire site away from jekyll to wordpress or just the blog?

timothyfcook commented 10 years ago

I like the idea of setting it up as a collection on Medium. That way anyone could write someone and submit it to the collection and we could easily function as editors of the collection.

Medium is even easier than Wordpress.

https://medium.com/help-center/d23372baede0

The blog page on opencompany.biz could just an rss feed with headline/summary of the recent posts in the collection.

clone1018 commented 10 years ago

I like @timothyfcook's idea of using Medium, however nothing about medium is open, not the company and not the source, is that an issue?

timothyfcook commented 10 years ago

Maybe we can be an encouragement : )

seanlinsley commented 10 years ago

I've never used Prose, but I thought I should point out that it's open source: https://github.com/prose/prose

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

are you talking about migrating the entire site away from jekyll to wordpress or just the blog?

The entire site. I'm expecting "just the blog" to form the bulk of the site and be tightly integrated with whatever else we make (directory, whatever shape a Crunchbase-alike might take, cf. https://github.com/opencompany/opencompany.github.io/issues/32#issuecomment-31289274)

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Medium

Here are the problems I see with Medium:

  1. WordPress has mindshare with journalists. It's a critical success factor for us that we jump the gap between tech culture and journalism culture. For this to fly we have to feel native to journalists.
  2. Medium is not white-label. We would have to come under their brand instead of establishing our own.
  3. Medium is less powerful than Google Docs for collaborative editing. There's no record of revisions, and weak commenting compared to Docs.

That way anyone could write someone and submit it to the collection and we could easily function as editors of the collection.

This isn't adequate to the practice of journalism. One of the things I learned on the call is that "writing" and "editing" are distinct roles, and not in the way Medium would have it. The clear consensus was that our stories need a single writer ("we need a byline"), and that editing (actually, "sub-editing") is where we get collaborative.

Another thing I learned on the call is that standard procedure is to write and sub-edit in one environment, and publish in another. Namely, one writes in Google Docs, kicks the story around with a few collaborators in there, and then hands it off to another person to copy/paste into WordPress and format for final publication. Since that's the standard for journalists and that's the culture we're going for here, I think we need to go with that workflow. Between GitHub Issues, our weekly Hangout, and a shared drive in Google Docs, anyone can contribute story ideas. We want journalists to show up and feel more or less at home in terms of workflow, with a few crucial twists related to openness.

The blog page on opencompany.biz could just an rss feed with headline/summary of the recent posts in the collection.

This dilutes the OCI brand, and constrains what we can do in terms of cross-linking with companies and practices in a Crunchbase-like compendium.

Dispatches commented 10 years ago

Just to point out: I agree that you should stick with WordPress as a publishing platform, given both its versatility and open-source nature. Just understand that that's all it is: the front end. It's designed for web publishing, which makes it a clumsy tool for the writing/sub-editing process. That's better suited to lighter cloud-based apps like Google Docs.

Personally I'd be willing to give prose.io a shot and as it's not front-end, the choice here isn't so important. You simply let your writers know that you want pieces submitted in one or the other. Currently Google Docs is familiar to more people, however, you may decide you want to retain a closer relationship with GitHub.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

The two tools we need are:

Medium folds the two together. Medium is top-notch for what it does, but what it does is too simple for us. We're looking for a more robust workflow, with our own branding.

Prose.io is a way to edit files that live in a GitHub repo. Despite the name, it looks and feels like source code. Coming from a coding background, it is shiny candy. Viewed from the perspective of a writer, I can't imagine it feeling comfortable for authoring and editing, because a) it's not WYSIWYG, b) it's not real-time, and c) it has no commenting features. It could maybe be a helpful piece of a GitHub-based publishing workflow if we decide to go that route, but if we use GH for publishing we're basically restricting the publishing role to geeks, who probably don't need Prose.io anyway.

We certainly don't want to restrict the authoring and editing roles to geeks. I think Google Docs is still our best option there.

I don't think we want to restrict the publishing role to geeks, either. I twitch when I try to use WordPress, but if I'm not the one trying to use it then so what? The caveat here is that I also twitch when trying to customize WordPress, so if we go the WordPress route we're going to need to find people besides me to hack on the site. Which isn't absurd: there's plenty of WordPress hackers out there. :-)

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Here's the thing: we're in a pilot period, and it feels to me like we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Our immediate need is to prove whether the OCI is going to fly at all. Open companies already exist, many of them (@vielmetti has been dredging them up from the 70s! #30 #32). Will these companies see value in the OCI? Will they fund an organization to tell a collective story around these themes? That's the question we need to answer before going any further. We need the OCI website to be good enough to answer that question.

I propose that we stick with Google Docs for authoring and editing, because it's familiar to the writers among us, and is perfectly adequate for our purposes.

I propose that we stick with Jekyll for publishing for the time being, because it's already in place, it's familiar to the devs among us, and it's perfectly adequate for a simple blog, which is all we need between now and March 22 to prove the basic concept of a story-telling OCI.

So writers write in Google Docs, and devs publish using Jekyll, and we revisit after March.

Any objections?

joelmccracken commented 10 years ago

+1 regarding the thoughts on prose.io.

Medium, as a medium, seems like a step away from openness. Wordpress is free software, and I actually think that the organization behind Wordpress might be a somewhat-relevant example of an open company.

On Dec 28, 2013, at 12:11 AM, Chad Whitacre notifications@github.com wrote:

The two tools we need are:

Authoring + editing Publishing Medium folds the two together. Medium is top-notch for what it does, but what it does is too simple for us. We're looking for a more robust workflow, with our own branding.

Prose.io is a way to edit files that live in a GitHub repo. Despite the name, it looks and feels like source code. Coming from a coding background, it is shiny candy. Viewed from the perspective of a writer, I can't imagine it feeling comfortable for authoring and editing, because a) it's not WYSIWYG, b) it's not real-time, and c) it has no commenting features. It could maybe be a helpful piece of a GitHub-based publishing workflow if we decide to go that route, but if we use GH for publishing we're basically restricting the publishing role to geeks, who probably don't need Prose.io anyway.

We certainly don't want to restrict the authoring and editing roles to geeks. I think Google Docs is still our best option there.

I don't think we want to restrict the publishing role to geeks, either. I twitch when I try to use WordPress, but if I'm not the one trying to use it then so what? The caveat here is that I also twitch when trying to customize WordPress, so if we go the WordPress route we're going to need to find people besides me to hack on the site. Which isn't absurd: there's plenty of WordPress hackers out there. :-)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

Dispatches commented 10 years ago

+1 @whit537 @joelmccracken

I wouldn't be put off by the fact that it's been tried before - most things have. There's plenty of R&D on the concept to keep you busy and to provide content for an interesting blog. Maybe companies will be interested in funding that research, and refining a model which could complement other CSR programs. (Corporate Social Responsibility)

timothyfcook commented 10 years ago

Agreed on sticking with Jekyll and Docs for now. The main reason I thought Medium would be interesting is that folks who aren't connected yet could write something and submit to the collection. And prettiness.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

I actually think that the organization behind Wordpress might be a somewhat-relevant example of an open company.

Heck yeah!

The main reason I thought Medium would be interesting is that folks who aren't connected yet could write something and submit to the collection.

Somewhat relevant: over on #40 we're looking at documenting the process for writers to get involved.

And prettiness.

:-)

Hearing no objections, I'm closing this issue.