Collaborative Blog?
abdulbasitsaeed - June 9, 2008 - 17:39
Hi there, everyone!
I was going through the features of Drupal and have already read about it's feature for individual and multiple user blogging.
However, I was wondering whether Drupal would be an option if I were to setup a collaborative blog, i.e. one blog where multiple users/authors would be able to post and contribute. Would I need to install an add on module for this purpose?
Thanking you in anticipation for your help.
blog module
That's basically what the blog module does. If you want a single-user site, you should simply use the story content type, not the blog content type.
Thanks
Ahan...thank you for the reply, yelvington. I believe that the blog module is part of the core, and not a separate module, right?
Is there any place where I could read some detail(s) about how Drupal could be used and configured for a single blog with multiple author(s)? If so, please post the link.
Thank you all once again. :)
Drupal acts as a very
Drupal acts as a very sophisticated blog tool too. The first page is indeed the frontpage where the users (you select using permission control) have the option of promoting text to the front page. Thus, the idea of collective/collaborative blogging can be put to practice without the need of a module.
Ali Hammad Raza
WordsValley
> ie one blog where multiple
> ie one blog where multiple users/authors would be able to post and contribute
As I understand it, not quite.
Each user has their own blog which can be viewed separately 'by author' when desired,
but you can also easily view a collation of all the blog entries in one page, as if
it was all one blog - in fact this is the default view.
You can also get the bloggers to tag their blog entries, and then view all blogs 'by tag'.
Eg. several bloggers may use the tag 'video games', so you can then view all entries from
all authors about video games.
Whilst not exactly what you are asking for, I think this system is much more powerful.
And it can all be done by the drupal core.
Thank you all for the input,
Thank you all for the input, although I must admit that I'm a bit confused now.
What I had in mind was a single blog where multiple authors have access to it and can post to it...that's the sort of collaborative blog I had worked with earlier. But it seems there is another possibility that the content posted on multiple blogs are presented on one front/main page instead.
If someone out there who may be using Drupal for a collaborative blog would be kind enough to give his/her views and tell how to work this out? I'd be most grateful.
> But it seems there is
> But it seems there is another possibility that the content posted on
> multiple blogs are presented on one front/main page instead.
You're not confused; that statement is almost completely correct,
except that, without writing a module yourself, this is the only
possibility of the blog module, rather than 'another possibility'.
However, I don't see how this is a problem, because the 'multiple blogs
presented on one page' do look, act and feel like a single blog. The only
addition is an 'author' link at the bottom of each blog-post, which
takes the user to the author's individual blog when clicked.
I can't actually see how the flexibility to list entries by author
would detract from a multi-author blog?
EDIT:
Ah! After reading zirvap's post below, I had a sudden realisation what it is
you may actually be asking for: Do you want SOME users to be able to
post blog items to a blog, whilst the other registered users can't?
If so, as zirvap explains below, the user-permission system can be used
to make the blog module exclusive to a special group of bloggers, and
ordinary authenticated users will not be able to post.
Alternatively, if you want several of these 'multi-author blogs',
each with its own private group of authors posting to it, you should
probably use the 'organic groups' module.
The OG module work something like this:
http://groups.drupal.org/groups lists all the groups on drupal.
For example, http://groups.drupal.org/london has multiple authors all
posting to the group called 'london'. Group managers can moderate
membership (eg. make membership 'invite only'), and set a lot of
other joining and viewing restrictions. Each group 'blog' has it's
own RSS feed.
I don't know if the drupal groups are actually using the organic groups
module or not, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.
...
The simplest way to implement this would be:
- Install Drupal (either 5.x or 6.x will do)
- Do not activate the blog module
- Rename the content type "story" to "blog post" (or create a new content type named "blog post")
- Make sure that "blog post" is promoted to the front page (this is default if you choose to rename "story")
- Create a role "blogger" (or whatever), give it permission to create blog posts, and edit own blog posts
That's it. Now all users with blogger permission can write posts, and all these posts will be displayed on the front page, with the newest first.