It's about the Community Plumbing: The Social Aspects of Content Management Systems

By cel4145 on 31 May 2005 at 06:25 UTC

Dries and I have been working on a chapter for an edited collection in my field, Computers and Writing. A work-in-progress version of the article has been accepted to and is open to discussion for the Computers and Writing Online 2005 Conference hosted on Kairosnews. The article questions the appropriateness of the term "content management" and discusses Drupal history, its software features, and the Drupal community.

Feel free to join in the discussion on Kairosnews over the next few days using your Drupal ID. The subscriptions module is enabled on Kairosnews, so you can subscribe to any of the pages that you like. The abstract of the article is available below:

Abstract

In the summer of 2003, we worked on creating a general description of Drupal--an open source content management system (CMS)--for the "About Drupal" page on drupal.org. While Drupal is clearly within the class of applications known as content management systems, we felt that to describe it with that term alone would not present a clear picture of the breadth and range of Drupal's capabilities. Thus, the final description ended up describing Drupal with a total of four characteristics, although notably not distinct:

content management
weblog
discussion-based community software
collaboration

Why is it then that the term CMS alone would not suffice? The word "content" places much emphasis on the product over process; it fails to emphasize the social use of CMS's, a mislabeling which places too much emphasis on the content itself at the expense of the communication and collaboration the better of these systems implement. In order to better understand how CMS's are being influenced by the precepts of social software and their role in creating social networks online, this presentation will

explore Drupal's social software features,
narrate its genesis as software serving a community
explain the influence of the community itself on Drupal development and the software's influence on the community that creates and uses it.

In composing this text, we draw on the coauthors' unique perspectives. One of us is the founder and lead developer of Drupal, and the other a researcher in Computers and Writing and a participant in the Drupal community.

Comments

Very interesting read

Steven commented 31 May 2005 at 06:59

It was a very interesting read... I added some comments on the relevant pages. I hope they are helpful.

I thought the most interesting bit was where you talk about how Drupal has become personified to the developers. I think it is interesting to note that a lot of popular open-source applications tend to have people (FreeBSD), animals (Linux, Firefox) or personified things (Druplicon) for their logo. Perhaps this is related to the way most open-source developers view their relationship to the project ;). It would certainly explain the reluctance of many developers to get rid of Druplicon, even though it is often said to be too unconventional, 'alien' and/or scary for marketing purposes.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

This takes me back...

andremolnar commented 31 May 2005 at 09:40

This takes me back to my university days studying both computers and cultural studies. I got hooked on the cultural theory of the net... and was immediately drawn to this new thing called the 'world wide web'.

My undergrad thesis was "computers are boring: people's interest misplaced" and I focused on how the PC and all stand alone devices and software were old hat and boring as hell. The future was interconnected users and the building of on-line communites and collaboration.

I couldn't get enough of the 'digerati's' writing - rheingold, negropante, stoll, barlow, hillis, kelly, turkle, winer et. al.

But, the dream almost looked like it was coming to an end... the 'dot-com' days were just getting into full swing as I was finishing up school and it seemed as if the net was moving to the dark side. Still, even during those dark days the spirit of community and collaboration persisted - and the techno idealists continued to work underground while dot com empires grew and crumbled.

I shouldn't have worried. The theory was sound. The net was a great liberator - and equalizer. And its potential grew exponentially with the addition of every new person that logged on.

Drupal, and its community are a shining example of what the net and the web are all about. The power of Drupal is its community - and its potential to build new communites of every type - and its ability to connect all of them together.

Anyway - great read. I'm going to send it off to my old prof and a couple of other cyber-culture geeks that I still keep in touch with.

andre

Sounds a lot like my background!

Gunnar Langemark commented 31 May 2005 at 10:47

Your description sounds a lot like my own background.
Is software like Drupal more luring to people who have culture and social human behavior at the centre of their interests?
I studies Film and Media, my major thesis was on Computer Graphics theory (the humanistic, cultural kind - semiotics etc.) - and I later did some Ph.D. studies on computer culture.

Drupal is one of a few really bright stars in software heaven - where you find the systems that are able to change your life.

Gunnar Langemark
http://www.langemark.com

I tried answering this question myself a few months back

Steve Dondley commented 31 May 2005 at 09:55

Here's what I wrote: http://drupal.org/node/15996

I agree that Drupal is misclassified as a CMS. It is primarily designed to be a vehicle for bringing people together and allowing them to communicate by helping them build dynamic and interactive communities. The CMS features are secondary, a side effect you might say, of trying to achieve the first goal.

I agree

CdnStrangequark commented 31 May 2005 at 17:22

I totally agree. CMS makes it sound like all it does is manage static pages. Drupal is so much more. It's more like a "COS" : Community Organizational System, or something like that.

Quality of content and Groupthink

lennart commented 31 May 2005 at 13:46

Interesting article. The focus on process is warranted.

But what actually happens to the quality of the content in online social networks?

This question is interesting because it has long been established knowledge that very often content creation, creativity, and wise decision making is hampered when taking place in a social context.

Groupthink is a concept that was identified by Irving Janis. It refers to faulty decision-making in a group. Groups experiencing groupthink do not consider all alternatives and they desire unanimity at the expense of quality decisions.

Does this also hold true for online groups?

Best regards,
Lennart

Use editors

Steve Dondley commented 31 May 2005 at 14:35

Not all communities have to be a free for all. Just like a maganize with many contributors, editors can set the editorial policy and decide what gets posted and what doesn't. This is possible with Drupal.

Editors are not exempt from groupthink

lennart commented 31 May 2005 at 15:16

I agree that editors can help maintain a certain level of quality based on certain criteria, but most often editors are members of the community in question.

In fact editors are often editors because they have been promoted to that status by the community. Having shown loyalty to group attitudes.

If you want to know more about groupthink, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Best regards,
Lennart

Well, that's humans for you

Steve Dondley commented 31 May 2005 at 15:26

I'm familiar with the concept. The most horrible example in modern history is Nazi Germany.

You are always going to have leaders who lead badly and followers who think uncritically. I'm afraid Drupal isn't designed to solve that problem. Maybe someone can write a new module.

groupthink.module v. 1.0 :p

lennart commented 31 May 2005 at 15:52

Great sense of humour nysus!

On a more serious note, I do think that online communities can circumvent some of the fallacies that are produced by groupthink. I think the issue ought to be given some serious consideration.

Next to Nazi Germany I would put the Soviet Union and the The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China as horrible actualizations of big scale groupthink.

Best regards,
Lennart

On the opposite end of the spectrum

andremolnar commented 31 May 2005 at 19:04

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have emergent behaviour.

Amazing things happen in social networks. Things that cannot be anticipated. Things magically get done faster, better, easier.

Think hive mind vs. group think.

andre

Geometry for the selfish herd

lennart commented 31 May 2005 at 20:05

Interestingly emergent behaviour can arise even when actors "scratch their own itch".

Free software, to me, proves that doing what is good for the self need not be bad for the group. Quite to the contrary.

Concerning groupthink - the important thing is that individuals can freely associate and dissociate.

Best regards,
Lennart

Scratching one's own itch is only part of the equation

Steve Dondley commented 31 May 2005 at 20:15

Just as we all have an instinct for self preservation, there is also an instinct to work cooperatively with others. Years of evolution have programmed this instinct into our brain. That's because the individual biological unit can often make out better when he works with others. This instinct is what builds societies and complex institutions like corporations. It is a large force in the open source world, too.

We agree

lennart commented 31 May 2005 at 23:22

I am not saying everything boils down to pure self-interest.

Non-zero sumness, reciprocal altruism and many other factors have been very real players in our evolutionary history.

I think scratching one's own itch is often the starting point for developing something. Then further along other factors that speak more to our social instincts start playing a bigger part. Peer recognition is one.

Very often we find ourselves in communities aligning our interests. The communities most successful in realizing the combined talents of its individual members will be successful in competition with other communities.

It is exactly in the aligning part a balance is necessary. Uniformity might be effective in the short run because of greater group cohesion. But it is exactly variation inside a community that will ready the community for many different situations and make it adaptive.

Drupal is adaptive by being modular. Contributed modules are fundamental. Modularity creates interdependence which furthers the motivation for cooperation since the modules "need eachother". Someone having spend some time developing a module also has an interest in keeping the core working and vice versa.

I think Drupals motto "Community plumbing" is a good descriptor, Drupal does the 'dirty work' (plumbing is hard work, is it not?); Drupal provides a framework which can facilitate cooperation amongst individuals. Maybe even catalyse it.

At the structural level I think trackbacks are more valuable than moderation for making sure that the content produced is met with some kind of quality control.

Maybe there are more ways to avoid online social network inbreeding?

Best regards,
Lennart