Our company does business with multiple CMS systems, like Joomla, Plone and Drupal. They all have their advantages, they all have their disadvantages. We do not want to make CMS a religion. It’s a tool. You can argue with the client which tool is a right job for a task. Joomla is lightweight solution for non-critical systems, Plone is good with lots of content, editors and workflows flying around. etc. etc.
I had this curious piece on conversation on #joomla channel on freenode. Though it is an individual case, I hope it will bring some light to the fact how people perceive Plone outside Plone community and what Plone should to do fix it.
I think it would be beneficial for Plone to finally close mailman for the site administration / user support and move to real web forums / Google Groups / whatever which would be usable.
Also, there is an example how unprofessionalism is not good for the community.
[20:23:29] x: Biggest problem so far is finding competent ("I will deliver on this schedule) joomla consulting experts. Second biggest problem is security, our site has been hacked 3 times in the past 6 months
[20:25:18] me: have you considered any alternative CMS with better security track record?
[20:25:50] x: moo: we moved from Plone to Joomla. 3 years on Plone with no hacks.
[20:26:04] x: Problem with plone is no forums with email support
[20:26:21] me: you pay for support
[20:26:30] z: did you do basic joomla security guidelines?
[20:26:39] me: also check http://plone.org/support
[20:26:40] Title: Support options for Plone — Plone CMS: Open Source Content Management (at plone.org)
[20:26:51] x: moo: I'm fine with paying for support. We're paying SiteGround $200-$300/month on average when you add the support costs.
[20:26:58] z: ie using a key to access admin, changing default sql prefix
[20:27:01] AngryPerson: who cares about plone
[20:27:10] AngryPerson: its an ancient cms thats clearly past its time
[20:27:20] AngryPerson: its only privately supported with little community support
[20:28:34] AngryPerson: Moo^_^: why are you even in here?
[20:28:40] AngryPerson: you just want to piss on joomla?
[20:28:43] me: we do business on drupal, joomla and plone
[20:28:48] me: different tool for different job
[20:28:51] -*- y shrugs
[20:29:01] AngryPerson: just seems to me like you want to push ppl away from joomla
[20:29:11] x: z: After 6 months I'm still a Joomla noob. I need a consulting services company that will do the security patching, maintenance, service on the site, and host it.
[20:29:25] me: not true
[20:29:36] AngryPerson: Moo^_^: well regardless of what you say, tahts how it seems to me
[20:29:54] z: actually I've had good luck just following a few blog posts
[20:30:10] me: I don't defend myself, as I don't want to engage such a conversation with you
[20:30:22] AngryPerson: thats good, why dont you fuck off too
[20:30:22] <-* jools has kicked y from #joomla (Please watch your language) [20:30:22] --> y (dgdf@unaffiliated/anti-mttr/x-9384728) has joined #joomla
[20:30:27] z: nothing is impervious, but you drastically reduce your attractiveness to hackers by a few simple steps
[20:30:32] AngryPerson: stop giving ppl your shitty advice
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I couldn’t know for sure, but I’d hazard that z/AngryPerson is approximately 17 years old and has never had a real job dealing with real customers.
For one reason or another, a lot of teenagers with an interest in web technology learn PHP first and either Joomla or Drupal second, and for reasons of teenage psychology, a lot of people feel they need to defend “their” technology like rabid fundamentalists. You’ll see the same with people going into C vs. C++ or C vs. Java or Ruby vs. Python or similar debates.
Plone tends to be used more often in a business context. Most people who’ve invested a lot in Plone are professionals, not tinkerers (no-one other than Plone developers run their blog on Plone). That means that we thankfully avoid these kinds of people.
That said, this is mostly a function of the Joomla community being so much bigger. The same cool, professional heads exist there too, of course. You just don’t notice them as much.
Martin
By the way, the Joomla security thing is scary. I witnessed first hand someone’s site being hacked and my colleague, who’d built and supported that site in a previous life, get some very nervous phone calls from a small business that was losing a lot of money very quickly.
You can argue that PHP gets hacked because PHP is more popular or whatever, but (a) I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that and (b) if you’re the customer losing money, that rationale doesn’t really make much difference.
Martin
Wow! The drama level in there, from just having a normal conversation, is quite amazing. I somehow thought the days of ridicolous anger and “my dad is stronger than yours” were over.
This seems like a larger problem than just having a better support forum than mailing lists. I think you were right to not want to engage AngryPerson in such a conversation as nothing constructive would have come from it.
I do find it interesting that people generally think of Plone as “old”, while at the same time many of these hip new products/frameworks are busy trying to catch up to Plone’s rich feature set. This is especially true when it comes to roles, permissions, security and workflow. What happens in a couple years with Drupal or Joomla! is “old”?
The juvenile language notwithstanding, what we need to take away from this shared exchange is the fact that the Joomla/Drupal/.. communities (warts and all) are growing in leaps and bounds, attracting new followers everyday. Meanwhile, newbies to Plone face a daunting learning curve. Unless we can attract new blood into the community, at the same rate as these other CMS environments, the Plone world will increasingly face an uncertain future.
Has anyone thought about or attempted a semi-official forum site? I know http://www.daemonforums.org/ is basically the unofficial home of the FreeBSD forums so something similar could be done for Plone.
that’s funny… i could imagine myself saying angry words towards joomla! since i found myself some time ago trying to fix something within joomla, scratching my head and asking how this un-extensible system could have become so popular (had to change a link-text in core files then).
ah, it’s the hosting problem. well, thats a point against plone.