WordPress MU

Hi all,

Before I download and test wpmu, I'm just wondering if you guys would consider it stable enough and also robust enough to launch a public multi-blogging site with?

Other than the current functionality of wp 1.5.2, what I need is the ability to publish blogs on subdomains like blog.domain.com and be able to admin them from a single dashboard/login

Also a few questions:

Will plugins work and can they be turned on/off for each individual blog?

Do the RSS feeds publish properly for each blog?

Are there any major bugs or quirks in the most recent nightly build that I need to watch out for?

And finally (finally ;-)), how often should I download and do upgrades while the software is still in this stage of the game? Like, weekly, every 2 weeks... etc.?

I'm kinda iffy on doing a full-out site right now with wpmu, but I've read through a LOT of info here on the forums and reviews on other blogs that tells me it's good to go. But if you guys/gals give my questions above a shaky two thumbs up I'll go for it ;-)

Well http://wordpress.com uses it so yes it is stable enough to use in a production site but it still does have it's quirks and not everything works out of the box.

What do you mean by "admin them from a single dashboard/login"? You still need to login to individual blogs to manage their posts, pages and what not (although I think it is single sign on now but still you need to navigate to the different dashboards.

Some plugins work, others don't. They can be enabled/disabled by individual blogs if you enable the feature to do so, there is a recent post here that mentions they have quite a few plugins working so check out the recent posts (too lazy to search right now...).

RSS feeds function just like they would on a standalone blog.

There are no major bugs that I am aware of but you need to be careful with the .htaccess rewrite rules for things like the image uploading and importing as detailed in recent posts here.

The upgrade schedule is really up to you and the changes that have been made, basically you should try to monitor the change log daily and review it to see if there are any critical fixes in there that you need to apply although that is often hard as a whole heap of changes get applied with just the description of WP merge (merging changes from the standalone version of Wordpress).

Basically if you have a decent amount of PHP and server administration experience then you should find Wordpress MU will work for you.

Hi jaseone, thanks for the detailed reply. I guess I just needed some reassurance before taking the plunge.

About your question:

"What do you mean by "admin them from a single dashboard/login"?"

I'd like to know if the main admin (me) would have access to all the blogs without having to log in to each one individually with a different username and password.

If not, can it be easily tweaked to do so?

Edit: Ok, I reread your post and that question was answered. Thanks!

You see, I plan on using it as a content management/publishing system with multiple blogs on different subdomains, that I'd manage myself from a single main admin panel at first, and then I would assign a writer/blogger to each blog at a later date. That's why I need the extra bit of functionality.

I realize that I could get away with almost everything I wanted with wp 1.5.2 and categories, but it would need more hacking and customization than I'd feel comfortable with.

I was ecstatic when I heard mention of wpmu though because everything I need seems to be built in.

Paul

Paul, have you installed and gone live with wpmu version? I think overall I want to do the same concept as you regarding mutliple blogs and wonder if you have had any problems before I take the time to install and personalize wpmu.

I want to have multi blogs like:
blog1.chrsitanblogsites.com
blog2.christiansblogsites.com

Also, I have concern about server administration experience. I have a virtual server (and I can create virtualhosts) that allows me quite a bit of capabilities, and some shell access, but I have no 'shell' experience.

I have another question for anyone. Has anyone tried plog for multiuser? Let me know why you think WordPress MU is better for multiblogging or WordPress is better than plog.

I would go with pLog. WPMU is buggy WP patch and nobody knows when the stable release will see the day light. Probably never as I was told on this forum, it will always require heavy administrator hacking knowledge.

Nice theme!

It's licensed under the "CC A-NC-SA 2.0" which I've read through for the first time today so correct me if I'm wrong please!
Does that license mean you don't want your theme used on commercial sites? What about sites that use adsense ads?

I'm guessing that last comment by donncha was meant to go here? ;)

damn, posted to the wrong thread. doh!

As for the pLog thing, I have not had more problems with any software besides simple Windows in my entire life... I don't think that it actually is a fault of the software, but a difference in the software that is being run on my server and the software that is being run on their development servers. Regardless, the development of WPMU and the fact that it works well for me will keep me coming back. Again, my two cents...

OK, I am now leaning towards Wordpress MU instead of Plog and Nucleus. The problem is there is no documentation for MU, so how does a newbie have the ability to install it and make it work? Is most of it the same as wordpress so I could hopefully figure things out by reading wordpress docs?

Let me share what I want to offer and hopefully you can let me know if wordpress mu is feasible.

I want to host web blogs for Christians. I would offer the service for free. I would like them to be able to change templates/themes.
http://www.christianblogsites.com

As mentioned earlier I want:
blog1.christianblogsites.com
blog2.christianblogsites.com

I do not want to have google or any other ads, but I do want to have about 5 links of my own on every blog no matter what template/theme they may do.

I would like the main page of the main site to have my personal blog contents on it-have a style similar to what is there now. http://www.christianblogsites.com

There would be a link that would have a list of all current blog owners. It would be nice if that list would be updated automatic.

I would also like it so people could sign up automatically.

Again, what is the server experience that a person needs to have. I have a very good control panel on my server that makes most things easy. But I have limited shell experience.

Anybody think this is feasible for me to implement with html, CSS, and some scripting experience, but no CMS experience other lately reading, reading, researching.

Rich

Unfortulately, MU does require some experience with wordpress, php, and possibly apache server and mod_rewrite rules.

Installing MU with directories is buggier than with subdomains.

But in order to get it to work with subdomains your host must allow wildcard dns. You'll need to get your host to 1) setup wildcard dns on your account (usually requiring a static IP), and 2) setup a wildcard apache vhost alias

After you get it installed, depending on hosts, apache and mod_rewrite setups, you may have to edit your .htaccess and htaccess.dist files to rewrite urls properly. Note: this issue is different from server to server, and fixes that have worked for other people may not work for you.

You'll need to know how to customize WP themes in order to have your link on every theme. You'll have to edit each theme manually to include the link.

Same goes for listing all current blog owners. Need to edit the theme used for your main mu blog.

to newtech: I'm using pLog on testing level and got no problems with it, working stable and find it easy to configure and also easy to understand on code level and make modifications if needed. So if I need to choose between pLog and WPMU for a multi-blog platform on this moment it will be pLog. But both projects do catch my attention so continue to keep track on both developments.