WP vs WP-mu for Newspaper site?

  • Hello,

    I hope I’m posting this in the correct place. I’m looking to create a News/Newspaper site similar in concept to something like the New York Times web site (www.nytimes.com) which I understand from my searches on this site, is something that people are already doing with WP. But I have a few questions. The idea at the moment is to give each contributor a Blog interface where they can post blogs (ie “articles”) under their own name but to have an overall “master” system and master Editor account that manages, organizes and displays all the articles site-wide under one interface. So things like tag categories, search functions, UI look and feel, presentation, etc should all be consistent and accessible from a central point. After doing some research, it appears WordPress is the best blogging software available. The questions I have is, is WordPress or WordPress-Mu more appropriate for what I’m trying to accomplish. As I understand it, WordPress requires multiple installations for each blogger/contributor whereas WP-mu requires only one instance for multipe contributors? I’m going to have 30 or so contributors to start but that may grow to several hundred over time. I have some technical experience (bash, perl, visual basic 6, some rudimentary unix/windows administration) but have zero experiences with blogs and would like something easy to setup, use and maintain. All articles/blogs should be accessible from one domain name (eg: https://www.nytimes.com and not <contributor_name>.nytimes.com) which I understand shouldn’t be a problem for WP or WP-mu. Also, while not a critical feature, can anyone comment on any content workflow capabilities like draft-approval-publish cycles? Any insight that anyone might give me would be greatly appreciated.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • No. You are under a misapprehension. MU will not suit. You need Wp and then add users (one blo – many contributors) – for any type of pro, quality effort mu will not give the control you need.

    Is this the “real” Root?
    Welcome back ??

    As real as it is gonna yet. ! Yeah its me. Doesn’t life suck. ??

    Before you start such a project I would make sure that you know what you are doing. I am not too worried about the technical aspect of the job, but more the organizational and the quality control. This might be a project that is a lot bigger than it might appear. Good luck!

    We’ve been trying to find a way, or theme, that will give us the look of the NYTIMES as well. If anyone has suggestions I’d appreciate it!

    thanks,

    chuck

    There is nothing really fancy about the NYT. Its just a lot of layout. But you are definitely into pro designer territory (or a lot of reading / hacking). Its very doable.

    Thread Starter veritaswp

    (@veritaswp)

    Thank you all for your help. So if I understand correctly, the standard version of WP is “multi-user” capable as well? I was under the impression for the Mu site that WP-Mu was built for handling multiple user accounts (as well as for scalability), and that the standard version was more or less for single bloggers and required multiple instances to be installed in order for it to handle multiple contributor accounts. Also, would someone be able to tell me why WP-Mu isn’t suitable for creating a multi-user newspaper-type site (or why the standard version is better) and what issues (other then scalability) is Mu designed to solve if WP-standard already handles multiple users. Thanks again.

    Until you install at least one WP, it is difficult to explain all the internal workings of WP or WPMU.

    Especially, when we (you and I) use the same words for different things. You call the ‘articles’ blogs – meanwhile for me the BLOG is the installed blogging script and the resulted entries/posts etc.

    So, yes, WP installs ONE single blog, where 1000 authors can posts entries/articles. Or one.

    MU gives the possibility to create blogs for every user (see the best example at https://wordpress.com – thousands of blogs, all with the URL
    something.wordpress.com… meaning if all of us from this thread go and have their own blog on a MU install, it would be like
    veritaswp.wordpress.com
    moshu.wordpress.com
    root.wordpress.com etc. – replace ‘wordpress’ with your domain!)
    Everybody logs into their own admin interface, while with the simple WP everybody logs into the same admin panel.

    Once again: having multiple contributors or having multiple blogs is not the same. Decide which one is the best for you and then we can further clarify ??

    Thread Starter veritaswp

    (@veritaswp)

    Thank you Moshu, that was very helpful. I think I understand it a little better now (I’m a little slow). I assumed that MU was a super powerful, industrial strength, steroid enhanced, ultra-mega, feature-wise-superset version of WP. But I take it while it does have better capabilities in terms of scalability, and is generally more “powerful” in a sense, MU is really more about serving a different type of need.

    I knew moshu would explain it better than I did ??

    Oddly enough WP MU IS NOT superstrength – industrial anything. In order to facilitate the multi user functionality from the host providers perspective a number of functions of the blog owner and their contributors/authors are disabled.

    Root, that is not true. You seem to have a lot of misinformation about MU, almost everything you’ve said on this thread about it is wrong. The restrictions we have on WordPress.com are not the same as you would have in a trusted MU environment.

    Sure – but returning to the OP specification as stated as I understand it a single install would do it for them. Maybe I misunderstood.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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