[drupal-docs] Drupal vs Mambo

[Charlie Lowe]

I agree with a lot of what you have written except for the usefulness of 
the term social software. Let's move from the theoretical semantic 
discussions to pratical implementation in this particular context.

*If* the use of the term is receptive to part of our target 
audience--i.e. it attracts them to Drupal by helping them to correctly 
conceptualize what they can do with Drupal--then it is a useful term 
whether or not there is some discrepency in it's usage unless a lot of 
people respond negatively to it (i.e., reject using Drupal because of 
that label, which I seriously doubt). Moderation, commenting, and 
collaborative book features, Drupal's experimental development through 
contrib modules (and now some soon to be come core) with social 
bookmarking, trackback, folksonomy, FOAF, etc.--as well as some features 
available through Drupal that I have not listed--all have some 
association for many people with the term social software. So I suspect 
that the term social software is likely to have an appeal to some 
potential adopters whether or not I/you/someone else on this list likes 
the term or not.

Now we may still disagree on my last point. If so, then perhaps one 
solution for this is for us to come up with key terms (not just social 
software)--even if some are considered buzzwords--and see if someone can 
setup some sort of poll. We can ask current Drupal users on drupal.org 
to rank them in three ways using Likert scales:

1) How useful they see each term for describing Drupal to them personally?
2) How useful they see each term for describing Drupal for their 
existing/potential clients?
3) How useful they might imagine the term for a more general audience?
(since their particular client base may be a very specific one)

The results of such a study (it would need a little refinement) would 
reveal a lot about how we should be describing Drupal. I don't have the 
software to conduct the poll, but I would be glad to assist with putting 
  it together otherwise.

In addition to the key terms like CMS, collaboration, community, social 
software, we should also list features/modules. I think we might be 
surprised at which features people thought were most important.

Morbus Iff wrote:
>> I also think I'm seeing a trend that those that see Drupal primarily 
>> as a content management system are more likely to see "social 
>> software" as an empty buzzword. I hope no one takes this personally 
>> when I say this, but we need to focus on whether or not those that see 
>> Drupal as mainly a community-building/collaborative tool think of 
>> social software as a useful term since it's that audience which the 
>> term targets.
> 
> Well, here's my take on it, really. Five years ago, when weblogs barely 
> even existed popularly, and "content management system" was a big scary 
> word that usually meant tens of thousands of dollars (and was only 
> recently, in 2000, becoming an area that "normal" people could explore), 
> I joined a "cms-list" that has since disappeared from the web:
> 
>   http://www.google.com/search?&q=cms+list+morbus+iff
> 
> Back then, a lot of people felt that "content management system" was an 
> empty buzzword, mainly because so few people could define what it 
> strictly was, what they allowed, and what they were supposed to "do" - 
> in fact, under very early definitions, Drupal would NOT be considered a 
> CMS because it doesn't have any workflow by default: there's no way for 
> me to "edit" something, "send it back" to the writer, receive a new 
> "revision", pass it on to a "copyeditor", who in turn would pass it on 
> to a "designer" who would lay down image blocks, and then pass it on to 
> a "photographer" who would stick the photos in, then dub it "finished" 
> for a "web master" to approve and actually make live.
> 
> Today, there's still not much cohesion: I, for one, don't consider 
> regular blog software (like Wordpress) a content management system, and 
> am between maybe/maybenot on Movable Type.
> 
> The "verbose" definition of "social software", from Clay Shirky:
> 
>   1. Social software treats triads of people differently than pairs.
>   2. Social software treats groups as first-class objects in the system.
> 
> Doesn't apply to Drupal. Drupal has no built in and public "groups" 
> feature: the closest is user roles which are magical and mystical 
> backend systems. Even making those public doesn't do anything "extra" 
> for users - they're just a member of a group, whooptidoo - it's a 
> side-effect NOT a "first-class object". Because of this, IRC would be a 
> social software (as individuals are "grouped" together by channels, and 
> further grouped by what network they choose) whereas IM isn't (most 
> folks who use IM don't realize, or bother to use, AIM chatrooms, Yahoo! 
> IMvironments; I don't believe ICQ has anything).
> 
> However, Clay more recently prefers the simpler:
> 
>   "software that supports group interaction"
> 
> which is so flipping generic that it entails this conversation. Our 
> email client is "social software" because we're using it to communicate 
> as a group on a special mailing list, and we're further "grouped" based 
> on the subject thread.
> 
> This is just obscene, and makes "social software" so generic that you 
> can justify a reason for *any* piece of software to be labeled as such, 
> just because it's the newest, grandest, and most generic buzzword - the 
> *same* damn way that content management systems were years and years 
> ago. Ever used Microsoft Word? It has an editing feature where multiple 
> people can edit one document, all users can see their edits, Yes/No 
> them, and folks can add individual notes on why the changes were needed. 
> Under Clay's most recent definition, *that* is social software too, as 
> is a wiki, a single website which five people modify through FTP 
> transfers, and a conference call on the phone.
> 
> With enough effort, anything can apply to those principles, and the 
> short end of the stick becomes: everything is social software, just like 
> EVERYTHING can be a content management system (hell, email is a content 
> management system because I have drafts, I can forward data off to 
> another user, I can track revisions and discussions, I can store data 
> forever, I can filter it according to my current needs, blah blah blah).
> 
> I think, however, the term "content management system" has some sort of 
> "base" instinct on what one actually is: it's "more" than a piece of 
> blog software, "more" than an email client, "more" than the Finder or 
> Windows Explorer. Conversely, I don't think "social software" has that 
> "base" instinct yet - it's the latest and greatest "hip" thing - 
> everyone is applying the term to anything just to get more eyeballs, 
> which is exactly what a buzzword    is (and is the way I've used it in 
> these discussions):
> 
>    1. A word or phrase connected with a specialized field or
>       group that usually sounds important or technical and
>       is used primarily to impress laypersons: “‘Sensitivity’
>       is the buzzword in the beauty industry this fall” (ADWEEK).
> 
>    2. A stylish or trendy word or phrase.
>