Do I need a CMS?

If so.. which one?

[artsygal]

Hi all! Thanks to all the reading I've done here over the last few months, my knowledge is definately increasing, and I'm starting to feel brave enough to expand on my site - which currently is simply a forum powered by phpBB. In my mind I have this wonderful image of a site that has lots of articles - expertly written, easily organized and overflowing with information.

The reality? I'm overwhelmed by the work behind it all. My site is rapidly approching its first anniversary and I desperately want to give my members more content. But I don't know how to do it. I'm not the worlds best writer, and so I'm going to need to recruit writers. Not THAT big of a problem - I know there are many members on my site who'd be tickled pink if I were to ask them to write an article or 2.

So... the main problem here is the implementation. From my reading, it sounds like I need a CMS? I'd like to be able to have certain people have the rights to write articles which then all wait in a nice queue for me to approve (or edit) before they go live. Meaning some sort of automated way to manage all of that, rather than having them email me the articles and going back and forth via email before I finally manually create HTML pages. Also - some way to organize the articles into catagories and sub catagories based on topics. Maybe a way for people to search for new articles. And integrate all this with my already existing phpBB board seamlessly.

Oh.. and because I have no budget, whatever I use to do this needs to be free, or pretty darned close to it. Am I dreaming that something like this exists? Or is it out there waiting for me to just discover it? If so, I'm sure that someone on here knows about it and I'd love a nudge in the right direction!

Thanks!
J

[markbaa]

haven't used it myself, but hear good things about mambo. There is some add in module to make it SEO friendly as well.

[olwen]

I quite like Xoops. But what you are wanting is there. Google cms comparison for a site to look for comparisons.

[lostinfrance]

Hi,

I use xoops, it also has a phpbb board module which is easily installed and there are some converter scripts which will import the members and all their topics, threads & private messages from your existing phpbb board into the xoops system.

I was in the same position as you and wanted to offer more such as articles & news feeds etc but didn't want to loose members or have them have to re register. Also the xoops system uses "modules" which are very simple to install, mostly just needing uploading and installing via the admin panel, they have lots of good modules from article management to games and many different themes. go and have a look at: xoops.org

If your server has a cpanel xoops, phpnuke & mambo and other cms are often lisited in the "fantastico" section for easy installation. I did a test install of several cms systems in different directories on my site and tested & tried them out first.

Hope this helps.

[rogerd]

I think a combined CMS/forum system would be the way to go, particularly if you can use an integrated login.

On other approach would be to use the forum itself as a CMS - you could create one or more topics for articles in which only the admin could start a thread. You could publish the article (giving credit where due, of course), and then discussion could flow in subsequent replies. Or, if you wanted to keep the articles by themselves, you could link to a different thread for discussion of the article.

[artsygal]

THanks for the info. I'll look into xoops and see what I think of it. Having said that, I'll probably end up back here with more questions once I do look at it - questions I don't know I have yet! lol..

J