[p2p-research] Moving to blogging: Wordpress vs. Movable Type vs. other?

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 04, 2009 at 12:05:01PM -0400, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> 
>> While I'm not a big fan of "security through obscurity", one can trade off 
>> a smaller community against being a smaller target. That's another reason I 
>> thought about just doing my own system.
> 
> I presume you can find a decent wiki (I use MoinMoin) blog or CMS package
> in the favourite (Python or Common Lisp) secure language of your choice
> without having to roll your own.

Sure, it is usually far easier to work from a well engineered base (maybe 
with local customizations) than start from scratch. There are a lot of 
things now like feeds or nice looking style sheets or single sign on that 
people want or expect and it would be a pain to rework all that.

But I have long wanted something different from most of what's out there 
that had a few characteristics more like Google Wave is exploring (and 
beyond that).

One is a semantic focus, so you are exchanging webs of linked information 
(so, more like RDF).
Another is a layering ability, so you can overlay your own links on top of 
public links.
Another is a p2p distributed aspect, like email.
Another is a transactional paradigm.
Another is easy replication and redistribution of content (especially entire 
repositories).
Another is desktop applications to work with all this, and maybe publish 
summaries to web pages as desired.

These are all things I've been exploring, or wanted to be exploring, with 
the Pointrel system. So, this is not quite the same as just wanting to roll 
my own blog software.

When I talked about the p2p foundation infrastructure being Wordpress and 
MediaWiki, I left out an obvious important part -- this mailing list,
  http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
which is powered by Python software called Mailman.

I've basically been using that (plus Google Groups like Open Manufacturing) 
as my personal publishing platform. :-) And, I like it. :-) Even if I want 
to consolidate my writings here and on the OM list and repackage them for a 
larger audience with a different focus (so, perhaps looking at these issues 
through the employment lense, not the p2p lense).

Why do I like the p2p mailing list as a publishing platform for me?
* Somebody else maintains it and set it up.
* It's public.
* There is a community to converse with.
* There are archives (I prefer Mailman over Google Groups because you can 
download the archives in mbox format).
* Any post both goes instantly on the web so it is searchable and 
referenceable by a link
* Any post I make is also being backed up to dozens of other computers 
(people's inboxes), so even if p2presearch was shut down, the ideas are out 
there.
* People can easily share what I write if they want (forwarding a note), or 
they can edit it as they comment on it and repost it.
* I keep an easily accessible local copy of whatever I write in my email 
system (unlike Wordpress or other CMS systems that need to be backed up 
seperately in an odd format).

Google Wave says it is reinventing email, but really, it is more reinventing 
the mailing list in a way. But, there remains a lot to do in this space, as 
with my list above (semantic issues, transactional issues, distributed 
issues), only some of which Google Wave seems to support; but I'm not a 
Google Wave expert -- haven't even tried it yet -- and Google Wave is 
obviously a moving target as (supposedly) an open source project.

Anyway, so exploring those issues is a reason for me to write code. Just so 
much to do, so little time, so much other stuff happening by so many other 
people in various communities, etc. So, is it write code, write content, or 
both?

New ideas are often best first implemented in old ways (so talking about p2p 
on a mailman mailing list), whereas new ways are best applied first to old 
ideas (so, using new p2p software to talk about running bureaucracies). :-)

So, if I have new ideas and new ways, well, that's a problem, and much 
higher risk. But, it's more fun and has more creative energy sometimes. :-)

>> Anyway, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of possible choices 
>> for blogging and CMS (beyond writing my own), and at least a dozens or two 
> 
> For the minimalistically minded, especially emacs users there are some
> useful solutions, e.g. http://www.sfu.ca/~gswamina/EmacsWikiBlog.html
> I presume there's something similiar for vim users as well.

Sure. Right now, for my pdfernhout.net, I write stuff in a certain simple 
markup, run a Python script (which my wife wrote to put a book online, and I 
expanded to may own needs for turning emails into web pages based on my 
email writing style) and then generate pages (all kept under version 
control) which I then SSH to the server when I am happy with how they look 
locally. A bit of a bother to do a few steps, but it works.

No room for comments, though, as that is a static publishing system. Still, 
if one had a shared desktop system that people used, everyone could publish 
their comments perhaps through it in an p2p way, either relaying them 
through websites or relaying them to other peers and then the site owner 
could publish them.

>> of them are established systems in various programming languages with big 
>> communities as a CMS/blog. Python alone has a list of dozens of blogging 
>> packages. So, it's hard to pick one. It involves both understanding the 
>> landscape of possibilities and understanding the landscape of your personal 
>> needs, and then figuring out possible matches (even multiple matches, as in 
>> the p2p foundation case which uses both Wordpress and MediaWiki). And, as 
>> you also mention, one can also go with a purely hosted solution where 
>> someone else worries about these things (assuming they do, and assuming you 
>> can still have your own domain?).
> 
> I think such hosting plans exist, and you likely can point your existing
> domain to your provider's DNS servers (I certainly offer such, though largely
> to friends and friends' friends).

Probably. Again, then which one to choose?

Anyway, I can do all the technical stuff. Making the choice from a 
bewildering array of possibilities is hard. Many people just make the choice 
from what their friends are using or based on what is easy to have access to 
from their provider (not necessarily a bad plan, as it relies on social 
networking intelligence). As a more techy person, I try to make the choice 
by looking at all the options and trying to understand their strengths and 
weaknesses in the context of my own situation.

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/