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Hiveminds | Tue, 2008-08-05 10:09  tags: , , , , ,

Whether or not you believe it an open source CMS project is similar to a church organization and PHP, ASP.NET and Java are like government entities. Typically CMS third party developers cannot see the difference. This is because there should not be any.

Can someone please answer my question..?

Many newcomers to creating modules, extensions, components, plugins or whatever you want to call them, are summarily waived away when they ask questions concerning the programming language that the content management system is written. The questions may not necessarily concern the project directly but might influence how an extension of the CMS is created. An example would be if a web developer has a question on how to use PHP cURL in preparation for developing a Paypal script. the developer in question may not have mad skills in this area or may just be fishing for information on previous attempts to do the same thing. Regardless, community leaders should not ignore them or the number one rule for building a community, "no post should go unanswered".

Advanced users are assests

Sometimes in an attempt to protect the CMS projects community from the background noise of voiced ideas forum moderators may forget the primary objective is to influence others to help others. One of the best ways of doing this is to try and support not only the beginner and novice end user but those that are more advanced. It is these advanced users that when treated right become the underpinnings of a strong and vibrant community forum. Community leaders should try and catch these elusive fish before they become so entangled in their own projects that they swim away.

Learning not worship

All too typically CMS project forums turn into places of worship. The leadership in an attempt to better market their product fall in love with it and place it on a pedastal to be praised upon. Similar to how an evangelist might react to questions concerning the english language used in the bible from a person new to the religion. A similar fate is cast upon the newbies to a forum for Joomal!, Drupal or Wordpress... etc.

Hiveminds

One of the ideas behind Hiveminds is that there should not be a line drawn between the use of a framework and the use of the language that the framework is written in. A CMS or framework could not exist without the programming language and there might not have been any interest in the programming language if not for the CMS. There should be a place where the two can meet and people can exchange ideas freely and support the CMS project. You see this happening frequently in the wild where a PHP developer creates something and a CMS developer says " this would be a great addition to our core system!". This will happen more often if open source content management system leaders and contributors would put away their bibles and concentrate on being sociable rather than religious.


Happy Publishing!

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